So we got some sad news this week.  The biggest indi bookstore in the DFW area is closing down.  They opened when the recession was just hitting and have held out for eighteen glorious months.  It's a super cool place and I wish I could share it with everyone.  I'm going to miss them.  Hopefully all of the authors who supported the bookstore find other boolalicious homes for their signings and events and stuff.

As usual I'm staying plenty busy!

This last weekend I went to my best friends, little sisters wedding in Oklahoma - I just wished someone would have told me where in Oklahoma it was before we started driving.  We assumed the wedding was in Oklahoma City - but in actuality it was in Ada, Oklahoma.  Yeah.  Making that U-Turn was not fun.  The wedding was very pretty and the couple were very happy.  I also got to see the fore mentioned best friend and her family and that's always special.  I road-tripped it with an old college friend, lots of fun talking about school, our lives now - and books!

Sunday was the official Book Addicts kick off, so several of us went over to Suz's house and camped out to write all day.  I learned something very important about myself.  Sitting at a kitchen table I will stare at the cursor mocking me and maybe dredge out 500 or 1,000 words.  If I move to the couch - BAM - thousands of words!  Yeah, after learning that I parked it across the room on the couch and pounded out words; lots of words.  It's a little disheartening because the weekends are turning into my writing time; I'm getting so busy on the weekdays it's almost impossible.

Like Monday - I did do revisions, but I also had to balance cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and everything else I missed out on doing this weekend because I just wasn't at home!  Tuesday was the book club up at Legacy and that's always a full evening of shopping and talking.  Wednesday I had an accident and didn't go to dance class, but I still had stuff to do for people! 

Tonight is supposed to be Harem Night; I'm thinking I'm not going to go because my weekend is already full and I need time at home to clean and knit and wash clothes and do stuff for meeeeeeee.

Friday we're going up to Legacy probably to say our goodbye to the store and attend the Rachel Caine book signing.  Saturday is dance class and I got roped into going to my friend's cooking demonstration class, and I might possibly have a movie outing if we get out early enough.  Sunday we're discussing another possible writing day... And then it starts over again!  @__@  I need a vacation from my life, lol.

I know, I'm supposed to do a Girl Talk Thursday blog today, but I haven't blogged about me in over a week so I might as well.  I've been busy, I have a lot to say.  Like - how I need to really keep my camera on me.  I really should take more pictures.  I'm bummed because we had a baby shower on Saturday - and did I think to take any pictures?  Nope.  I really would have liked to.

So, my sort of goal now is to take more pictures.  More memories.  I want new pictures to hang on my walls at home and fill those gaping places.  I should get the chance this weekend; I'm going to my best friends, little sisters wedding - in Oklahoma.  It's love to go to Oklahoma, let me tell you.

And what have I been up to the last two weeks since I haven't really been blogging?  I've been catching up with my friends.  Doing things.  Watching movies mostly.  Knitting.  Ooooh!  I knitted a book cozy.  It's going to go with my first Book-Addicts.com giveaway and it's super nifty.  I need to make one for me so that I protect the books I thoughtlessly toss into my purse all the time.  I also need to take a picture and update my Ravelry and just show it off.  The next one I make will have a few changes, like a ribbed edge instead of just a k&p every other row kind of plan. 

I've been knitting a lot more.  I think it has something to do with that whole wanting to make Christmas presents thing going on in the back of my brain.  I'm working on an adorable pink and blue stripped scarf.  It rolls in on its self, so it would be a really good accessory, but not very functional.  I'm thinking I'll give it to one of my younger nieces and do scarves for the whole brood.  That's five kids.  Just so you know.  That's a lot of knitting - but I wanna do it!

The writing and revising has been going very slowly.  I'm up to the third chapter on the new WIP called My Personal God.  I've cut about 7K from Sing Softly - and that hurts.  Like OUCH!  My goal with Sing Softly is to just get the plot in place and the manuscript readable and get someone to just read through it; probably the #writersdatenight girls because they're all bugging me about it.  After that I'm thinking I'll shelf it and n-e-v-e-r work on it again. 

I wound up dancing at Stratos for the oil spill fund raiser last week.  It was random and happened at like 4pm - and silly me - I thought there would be more than just one other person and myself doing it.  I'm so silly!  Over all dance has gotten much more challenging.  Myself and three others were bumped up to the intermediate class, which is also intro to zills.  Uh, I can't even move my body in all the ways they're telling me to, and now I'm supposed to zill?  For me it's the body moving that's harder.  Zilling?  Pft - I was in marching band, yeah my right hand is a little dysfunctional; I played French Horn.  But zills and moving and playing doesn't bother me.  Yes, I do get off rhythm easily, but I've always had issues with my internal metronome not functioning properly.

Oh, and I had my first ever experience at a gaming place with a friend for her hubby's birthday.  Yeah, I so don't have a nerd/geek card.  Race?  Class?  What?  *plays with Killer Bunnies*  Yeah, I have never felt so normal in my whole life.

What else?  This weekend is the wedding and the kick off for Book-Addicts.com - so go enter my friggen contest Saturday!  Fer serials people.  I'm going to be giving away a copy of Feed.  You don't know just how awesome this book is.  It's very much a rock-your-socks-off book.

And while we're talking about books, my awesome, funny, talented, mommy-amazing friend Erinn is celebrating her blogging success with a mystery box giveaway of books! G-o E-n-t-e-r N-o-w !-!-!-!

Right.  So that's all the interesting stuff I've been doing for now. 

Okay, so I was chatty, then silent, then chatty - dramatic! - and then silent again.  I'm sorry, very sorry - last week was just a lot to handle.  No, my father's health isn't great - and I'm not supposed to know anything so I'm not going to talk publicly about what I'm not supposed to know.  There has been Other Family Drama, resulting in me turning rather anti-social.  I think after a few crazy weeks I need some down time, without the crazies or the distractions to sort of recharge.

But wait! This is me we're talking about - I hardly know how to do nothing, ya know?  Last week was almost an experiment in just that.  Oh wait - no it wasn't! 

Monday I did spend solo, warding off the world, cleaning, doing grocery shopping, etc.

Tuesday was Cover Girls, a monthly book club up in Plano my friends and I trek up to attend because it's just awesome.  I made cake-pops, which there are pictures of them in my Flickr.  I also made some book-pops with Dakota Cassidy's new book My Way To Hell done as a flag.  Super cute.  Check out my bakery success, fer serials.  Somehow, I'm not quite sure, but I wound up as the Teachers Pet at this event, lol.  The organizer, who turns to my friends and says, "I don't remember names, I'm sorry," proceeds to call me out of around 60 women for opinions and things.  It was funny and Certain People poked and prodded at me all night, but we were all laughing about it and really I didn't care.  Hey, it's flattering to get noticed!  You're lying if you disagree!

Wednesday was dance - but sort of a big night.  My dance school was featured by Groupon.com and Wednesday was the first night people could redeem their class voucher.  400 people signed up for the class!  400 people!  There are now two beginner classes on Wednesday.  I'm getting kicked up to the Intermediate Class that meets afterwards.  Sunday instead of just having Aliki's class, there will be two additional beginner classes taught by Neenah.  That's a lot of additional classes!  That's a lot of people!!

Thursday - Writers Date Night - and Cid forgetting the power supply.  It was a very beneficial night as I plotted out a new WIP and worked on some additional writing stuff I'm doing.

Friday - I think, don't quote me on this because I cannot for the life of me remember - I spent alone!  ALONE! HURRAY FOR ALONE TIME!

Saturday was dance class again - this one seriously kicked my butt.  We worked on floor work, and how to gracefully get onto the floor while dancing.  It's freaking Wednesday and my whole body still hurts.  The worst move we did was getting down on the floor, sitting on your legs.  Raise your butt up off of your legs just enough to clear your heels, and then move hips in a circular fashion while making your arms look pretty.  There are all sorts of directional changes and other things to do.  It also hurts like hell after not using those muscles seriously for a year!  We also did fifteen minutes of arm drills.  I didn't think this would be that bad.  Arms? Pshaw!  O. M. G.  The rest of the day I spent groaning every time I got in and out of my friend's car.  We went shopping in the pm for clothes.  I lurv shopping, and I lurv making people be my personal barbie dolls - because I never really played with them as a kid I guess I just like reliving that portion of my life now, right?  Did lots of great shopping, had dinner with some other friends and hung out for ages talking and whatnot so I got home uber late.  Now, I cannot just get home and go to bed, I have to like, unwinde and stuff, so I check my email and - So a few months ago I wrote lots of short stories and submitted them.  Haven't heard anything so I just accepted the silent rejections and moved on with my life.  Waiting in my inbox was a contract for a short story I'd written and submitted.  A contract to be published - and paid!!!!  I text'd tons of people, heck, you probably already know yourself but it's still fun to blog about!

Sunday was all about being at home and writing and reading and knitting and watching movies.  Really productive in some areas, I will say.  Started a new knitting project I'm excited about and will probably share pictures of later.

And this brings us to Monday - which was a random celebration of my impending published status and going out with the belly dancers to support Aliki dancing at Stratos.  Stratos is probably becoming my new, favorite restaurant, sorry McAllisters!  It's just a fun place.  Dance floor where the dancers dance every so often.  Amazing Greek food; I ate flaming cheese!  The waiters are almost all super cute.  And you get to dance!  Even on the tables!  Aliki got a bunch of us up to do a Shakira routine with her that we pretty much improved.  We did Greek dancing and some other line dancing - the only thing we didn't do this time - dance on the tables, lol.

So now we're at today - and today is another shutting the world out day, but only because there are books coming in on order today I'm crazy about and Must. Read.  The rest of the week is dance, writers date night and RA, so my live moves on in an ever persistent pendulum of crazy!

I'm in a contest for an ARC of Blue Fire for Janice Hardy.  You should really go check it out and enter, also go read her book Shifter.  I did a review of Shifter some time ago on my writer blog.  It's a delightful book, and I'm very excited about Blue Fire.  Janice Hardy is also in an anthology called Eight Against Reality, and I can't remember if I've seen this already on a shelf somewhere or if I saw it on another blog, where someone clearly had to be talking about how awesome it must be.  It's being published by Panverse, a new publication as far as I can tell.  Panverse is also doing a kickstart program to raise money to do more printing.  I feel like my next paycheck is slipping away from me, lol!

So for this week's GTT we're going on a shopping spree.  With only $100. I think I could sneeze and spend that.  Yes, I am aware of the fact that I like to spend money - and that's not really a good thing.  Right now, for an internet shopping spree, I think I would have to start off with a few purchases for my current extra curricular activity: dancing.  For those of you who don't know, I started taking bellydance classes a little over a month ago.  It's lots of fun, and accessorizing with fun hip scarves is super fun.

Unfortunately it's not so easy to find different styles of hip scarves.  I have a beautiful light blue with silver coin scarf my amazing friend bought for me because I couldn't go to the fair with them.  Ebay has become my favorite place for trolling for scarves.  So lets see how much I'd rack up if I did a little accessorizing....

First up is this hipscarf from Australia.  I'm so close to clicking the Buy Now button it's not even funny!

It's different from what I see a lot of girls wearing - which means I sort of want it for that reason.  But if no one else is wearing it.... Does that mean it's not a good buy?  I'm torn.  I also really like the white - but it's WHITE!  There are other colors, but I thought that the beading and detail work showed up best on white.

I'm rounding up, but it's about $10 to purchase it and then about $7 to ship it, for a total of $17.

I still have $83 to spend on my online shopping adventure... More scarves!

Okay, so this one comes in lots of different colors.  Some versions have sequins up on the top of the belt, but I'm not totally in love with that.  The other versions also have pearl detailing that I like better - but this black version looks like it has more coins - which means more jangle - which means more movement...

My hips will shake louder than your hips!

Again, rounding up - the scarf costs about $5 and shipping is $10. $10 shipping!  For a total of $15.

I still have $68 to spend on my online shopping adventure. I think I need one more hipscarf.

Yes, red.  I like red.

I'm also really digging the different ways the coins hang.  I think that's pretty cool.  I'm really into all of the scarves having a different look, can you tell?

Currently bids on this start at $.98, and the shipping is about $17 - which until I realized this was in China, seemed a bit much.  However, I could go to their store and do a Buy Now option for $23.  The person inside of me that wants instant gratification would do that.

I still have $45 to spend on my online shopping adventure. I think four scarves is plenty - so what else would I want to shop for online?  I don't buy clothes online.  I don't really like shopping online anymore.  But I do like books.  And I like shopping for books.  I have a B & N card, so I get free shipping on things delivered to the store.  I also get like 10% off my purchases so I'm dropping change unless it's an online special.  So, were I to preorder books today, I would purchase the following titles:

Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle ~ $13
Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi ~ $3.99 (online special!)
Red Hot Fury by Kasey Mackenzie ~ $7
Night Myst by Yasmine Galenorn ~ $7
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming ~ $10

Leaving me with $4...

Well, now I really want to go shopping!

As a kid I didn't get as much of an opportunity to read as other kids.  What I do remember vividly reading when I was a kid was a graphic novel/bound comic book of Scheherazade and the 101 Nights.  It came with a tape and I swear I listened/read that thing over and over and over again sitting on the bed in the motor home as a kid.  I got $.50 comics at truck stops and read those, but mostly I wrote my own stuff.  Occasionally I would come across a book or someone would give me one they didn't want anymore but these were few and far between.  When I mean I wrote my own stories as a kid, I mean I did it out of sheer boredom.  I do recall that the first chapter book I read was about a pig, though other than that I'm not altogether certain.

When we stopped traveling and I could read actual books, I read anything and everything horse related.  I recall having a very deep need to identify with my parents livelihoods, horses, and if I was obsessed with horses then it was a connection to them.  I read all of the Black Stallion books, Brumby books, Black Beauty, anything that featured people and horses, though I wasn't always keen on westerns.

I honestly can't recall ever reading that many children's books that were kid-geared, probably because it was a fruitless endeavor to keep me in books since we traveled so much.  I don't have a reason to read kid's books now, the closest I get are some middle grade and YA books - like the Percy Jackson books.

Yup, probably not all that enlightening this time.

I fell off the GTT wagon the last two weeks, mostly due to things directly pertaining to the subject of this week's GTT.  I've been so busy reading and writing that I haven't been blogging much, but I really had to pause and answer this question:

Do you make time to read?

Why, yes, yes I do.  In fact, I have a website/blog devoted to my reading and writing habits. 

www.CidWrites.com

Books have always had a fond place in my heart.  They're a way to escape.  To pass a long day.  To learn something.  To give my mind new things to ponder.  Books are very, very important to me.  I currently have about thirty books on my to-read shelf, and I can confirm that I've read 43 books this year alone - which I think is a bit low, but I'm not going to complain.  I buy lots of books too.  I plan on buying six books in the next week; four are ordered and will be waiting on Saturday, two are new releases coming out on Tuesday.

As a writer books are important because it's knowing the lay of the land.  Being aware of what people are buying or talking about makes it easier and better for me to have a feel on the pulse of the reader.  I have no illusions of being published anytime soon but someday I'd like to say: I'm published.

Finding time to read can be difficult.  I often read in splurges; it's very hard for me to drag reading a book out over days.  Most I pick up and read a chapter or two before work, read during lunch, and then marathon the book after work.  I tend to have a good idea of what I will and will not like so it's very rare a book will take me more than two days to read; the exception being very large books or busy times for myself.  There are even times when I've sacrificed sleep to read an entire book all night - um, last week actually.

So yes, the answer to the question is, yes.

[[ if you would like to peek at the books I've read you can check out my website or even find me on goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/cidreads  ]]

So another week of dance classes, and I have to say that I think at times I look more like a fish floundering on land than an actual dancer.  Tonight one of the ladies in my class and I spent half the time looking at each other with very lost looks on our faces and laughing with one another.  The thing is that the usual instructor was there this week - where last week we had a substitute.  6:45 rolled around, the music went on and she started a sink-or-swim session.  I think I succeed in moving in the right direction, but there's no way I'm doing this stuff right; we won't even discuss what I look like doing it.  But it's fun!  And my arms and all sorts of me hurt.

If you're into comics, the Boondock Saints comics are out.  I'm subscribed to them via Heavy Ink.  Comics are a very recent addition to my reading library.

Right now I'm reading an amazing Zombie book called Feed; I'm sort of anticipating being up later on tonight with nightmares, so I'm half tempted to draft this blog and publish it after that wake-up, but tomorrow is Thursday and I should be a good girl and do my Girl Talk Thursday since I've missed the last two Thursdays!

I'm constantly entertained by things that happen on Twitter.  Like, the random stuff I say that complete strangers pick up on and reply to.  It's funny to me.  For instance, I twittered something to the affect of, I have a Dr Pepper. What do you have?, and got like 50 replies with what other random people had.

Today I realized I haven't picked up knitting needles in weeks. Going to try to fix that on Sunday, since, wow, Sunday's Crafty Day.  I totally forgot!  Oopse.

And it's a holiday weekend! That's uber exciting.  And I might have plans for Monday, so that's a step up from my current habit.  Oh, and I'm getting my hair cut this weekend.  Finally!

I won stuff! I won a companion to the Dexter tv show from Grasping for the Wind.  Super excited.

I've read several books.  Still needing to write outstanding book reviews on my other blog.

Writing - a lot.

Having friends over at various points for movies.

And oh yeah! Belly dance!

So I'll talk about my belly dance class I went to.  It was super fun, and I felt kind of silly, but that's expected when your body isn't used to moving in certain ways.  I think I'm really going to like it.  I mean, by the end of the class my arms hurt, I could feel the burn in my thighs and I felt the workout through my upper body and abs.  I need to practice at home, which I've been bad about because of my fanatical writing, but I will get better.  I even bought belly dance music and one of my writer-friends-who-shares-my-brain bought me a hip scarf at the ren fair this weekend.  I'll now have jangly hips.  I may or may not post a picture of me wearing said hip scarf.  There will be no video of me dancing.  None.

Got to see The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus this weekend which was sort of sad to see Heath Ledger's last film.  There's a really ominous moment early on in the movie where it kind of hits you: he's dead.  The movie was really nifty.  I'm supposed to watch it tonight again.

Also saw two movies I didn't care for: Nine (the musical) and Defendor.  Both were very disappointing.  Nine I knew was the story of a filmmaker, but it was just downright depressing at times.  I re-watched it yesterday and became even less impressed with the music.  Defendor was just all round depressing, though I love Woody Harrelson after Zombieland, I wish I would have passed on this movie.  It wasn't funny, it was depressing and sad.

Yup.  This week should be lots of writing because I'm wanting to finish one novel this week and I have a lot to accomplish.  Though next week should be more interesting as far as social interaction goes.

I'm having a wonderfully boring weekend.  Well, except with these pictures not printing out well, but other than that I've gone shopping and written and watching Burn Notice.  I'll probably finish season 2 tomorrow and then pick up season 3 of Dexter.  I need to poke people to see if they want to watch season 3.... but that goes on the to-do list.

On of my fav authors, Robin McKinley, is doing a giveaway of arcs for her new book. I'm uber excited, but also uber tired so I'll have to work on my entries tomorrow.

I'm drinking far more Dr Pepper than is probably healthy

Wrote a very promising short story.

And this is turning into a list of items.

I'm reading a book about pirates. It's pretty neat.

Okay, I simply must figure out a reason to make these, if only for the fun bit about popping the balloons!!!!

In other news.... um..... I'm writing. A lot.  Did I mention I was going to do the Story a Day challenge for the month of May?  Well I am.  So far it's spawned two chapters of a middle-grade fantasy and a big chunk of a longish short story named after the main character, Pele.  I'm actually posting these rough drafts as I go in the spirit of the challenge, so if you decide to read them, please understand they're very uber rough.  I'm also still writing on my novel and I've sort of picked up writing a little fan-fic.

This boils down to: Cid is writing a lot.

It also means Cid isn't all that interesting, so she talks about herself in 3rd person and imagines her life being narrated by Jessica Stiles.

Okay, not really, that was a book reference to Going in Circles where the character deals with some circumstances by imagining her life is narrated by John Goodman.  The book is fantastic and I review it here.

So what's on the slow-cooker for me?  Well... this week I think not a lot.  I'm watching a lot of Dexter, the tv show with the serial killer, in preparation for another novel I want to write.  I'm subjecting my temporary roommate to it, and I'm sure she wants to clobber me by now  ~__^  She gets the patience award in my book.  The Red Pyramid comes out today; it's written by Rick Roiden, the same guy who wrote The Lightning Thief.  I'm thinking I'll camp out at BnN and read it tonight but buy it next week when he's doing a book signing in Southlake.  I make perfect sense in my head!

Last night was the book club meeting I completely forgot about.  I'm sort of glad I didn't read the book.  I'm also sort of planning on not reading the next book: Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Sorry, just... not interested.  And now I believe I will eat lunch; it's cooled down enough I can eat it and not burn my tongue off!

Ps - yes, my dad is doing great - thanks all for your well wishes and all!!!

[EDIT]

I had to add this because it was just too good to pass up! 

Hm, this one isn't so hard.  I would list off a bunch of historical places, Greece, Rome, Italy, the UK, China, Japan, South Africa, Egypt, Argentina, one of the Poles, some islands and detail all the really cool experiences I would love to do - but I think we would all do just that.

So I'm going to look at this from a different perspective.

I love books.  In fact, I like to pretend I'm a writer.  When I day-dream, I don't think about places I could fly to, I dream of the places that are cut from the things dreams are made of.  If I were going to take a Dream Vacation, well, lets list off the places I would want to visit!

Steampunk.  All that fashion!  The corsets, the parasols, the goggles!  And not to mention vampires, werewolves and ghosts!  If I could vacation in Gail Carriger's London, England I would have to take a tour of the BUR offices wearing the latest fashion of dress and sport the all important, silver tipped parasol.  After all, a lady never knows when she will need to protect herself and parasols are very handy things to have around!  Now, it probably wouldn't be allowed, but actually going into a hive or a den would be superb or even tea with the queen, hmm, how pleasant that could be!


I will probably always be something of a sucker for stories that are girl-and-her-horse.  Add in that the horse is magical and intelligent, and - take me there!  I very well might take a one-way-ticket to dream land if it meant I got to stay in Valdemar.  Seriously.  Magic.  Heralds.  Companions (the horses).  Yes, I'd wear white or gray if I had to, I really wouldn't mind - even if I would just look ever so pale.  There probably isn't a lot about the country of Valdemar that would be captivating if it weren't for the sentinels, the Heralds who are bound to their Companions to meet or see.  That I would want to see or do a stint as.  Of course they have some very colorful neighbors I would have to visit.  The tree people and the horse people of the plains are fascinating as far as people groups and would need a visitation.

Okay, so yes, it's just New Orleans, but New Orleans plus vampires?  Yes please.  It's not so much the setting as the company that would push me to go to New Orleans.  Vampires have of course been around for ages but they cannot make new vampires, until recently - oh my... I think I'd like an evening with a vampire, drink some wine, ask lots of questions, learn about history - that sort of thing.  I mean, who better to ask about history than someone who has lived it?  That and they tend to be rather handsome.  I can pick one dream vacation that's nothing but self-indulgent, right?  Shut up, you'd do it too!

Okay, so more horse-and-her-girl vacationing.  It's the desert, yes, but it's also home to these amazing horses! You ride with no bridle, so you have your hands free to do stuff, like read or swing a sword.  It's all riding with your legs and weight - which is how good riders ride anyways - but the issue is often with the horse.  It would also be neat to see the Lamprun Trials where the head of the evil old dragon made a flat tabletop so long ago, and the royal palace, which always sounded interesting to me.  The royals have a tendency for magic so why not? Magic and horses and swords? Sign me up! When am I leaving? And can I take two carry ons?



Again, set in a fairly normal, boring place - but what if the world around you were alive with gods and myths?  I'd like to take a trip to Camp Half Blood and see what it's like to train with Chiron and the others.  I have to say I'm partial to hellhounds and pegasus.  If I've ever wanted to write fan fic, it might be to appease the inner kid in me that wants to see things behind my desk or under my bed.  Give me a dream vacation spot where I can recline and drink nectar and eat ambrosia while listening to nymphs and satyrs singing and playing music?  Where I could jump in the ocean and go see an underwater city?  Who wouldn't want that sort of vacation!  It totally beats Disney World - which I actually don't remember.


Lastly, I'd want to visit the kingdom of the God King.  Tropical and colorful, there was so much about the setting that made me want to dream about living there.  A magic system that's so unknown and flexible that it bends to your will?  Much of their power comes from colors and your very Breath gives you power to animate objects and do stuff.  A very intriguing destination would be the Court of the Gods.  Where can you go in today's world and  talk to an in-the-flesh god?  I would do it for curiosity's sake.

And I've run out of steam.  There are six Dream Destinations I would visit - if they ever existed beyond my imagination.

Okay, yes, things are still sort of sucky in the Real Life front, but that's life right?

For the last few days I've been lost in Lynn Viehl's book series on the Darkyn.  I'm reading at least a book to a book and a half a day right now, and managing to write at least 1K a day.  I haven't blogged much about my writing progress on either of my blogs because - well - that would actually subtract from the reading and writing time.

If you like vampy books, I suggest the Darkyn series.  They're great!  Yes, they're probably in the romance section, but that's only a detail.  The PLOT is amazing and I love her CHARACTERS!  I've reviewed the books I've read in the series thus far on my other blog (cidwrites.com/blog) if you care to know my thoughts.  Three books to go ladies and gentlemen and then I think I'll take a reading break!   LOL

Okay, I know that all the changes Obama are making are probably good things.  Heck, we probably need the credit companies monitored and health care reformed, but right now it hurts.  It hurts bad.  The interest rate on my credit card just doubled.  Seriously.  5.9% to 13.6% - which makes me go OUCH.  I don't even want to think about health insurance.  We're probably going to enroll next week and I'll discover just how much more money I'll be paying just in case I have an accident.  Money that I would love to be able to pay on my debt so I can correct the huge monitary mistake I have made in my life.  I'm very sure that the government is not trying to make my life difficult, that everything is done for a good purpose and reason - but it's very hard to see much less understand that right now.

Ug.  So frusterated right now.  Going to explore some options and see what I can do.

In other news, Texas got snow - SNOW - on the first day of spring.  Woke up Sunday to a white-wonderland.  I stayed indoors.  One look at what should have been a beautiful sunny day during which I plated things turned into a burrowing day where I read.  I'm reading a lot of Lynn Viehl lately and I love it.  I'm not writing as much as I wold like to (what I have done I blog about at cidwrites.com/blog) but with the excessive crap that continues to happen, well, I'm just glad I'm not nosediving into depression and have maintained a fairly positive outlook.  Doesn't mean I don't feel like I'm drowning at times, but I'm managing alright.

Whoopse, time to go back to work.

The roaches are back.  Well, a single roach was seen last night and promptly attacked with all the viciousness it deserved for invading my domain.   At least I've progressed from screaming and running away, but these aren't the hissers, these are just the creepy big waterbug ones that fly.  My skin crawls just thinking about that.  I have yet to see another one, but now that I've seen one, I'm watching for the others.  I'm not stupid, I know they're out there - waiting for me to let my guard down just a bit.  That's when they'll really attack; but I'm ready.

This week is going better than last week.  It would be hard to be worse than last week, and thankfully this one is not trying to run that contest.  I'm still struggling with the previously mentioned knitting pattern, but I didn't get to mess with it today because I read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.  I have also written this week - where I didn't read at all last week.

The plants are shooting upwards.  I'm going to have to pull the top off soon - I think.  I'm a little unsure of what constitutes as leaves.  I'm really surprised because the Bluebonnets are blooming; Bluebonnets usually take a year to plant and bloom.  I'm hoping to get a few viable seedlings; that would be fantastic.  I should have taken pictures....

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm not going to my mom's race this weekend; I'll be staying home, waiting for twitter updates on my mom's progress.  Instead I will probably do some much over-due cleaning, writing and knitting.  I'm poking people to let them know it's an open invite to come over and hang out because I don't have a plan to go out. 

And, tomorrow night is the 10th anniversary of Boondock Saints.  If you're a fan, go look at the Fathom Events for locations and tickets.  Boondock Saints II came out Tuesday but I haven't had the chance to go get it -- yet.  Okay, I'm tired and the Chinchillas are begging, for something.  As always, I'm not sure what.

((For some reason this blog is not showing up right for me. Hopefully it's just a problem on my end....))
Well this weekend was a bunch of well-I-didn't-expect-that's.  But ya know what?  It was still fun.

Friday I obviously stayed home and gardened, which I will digress immediatly into more gardening ramble....now.  OMG I had no idea things would sprout so quick! I thought it would take another day or two before I saw anything that really looked like it would make a plant.  It's been a while since I grew anything from seeds.  Anyways, several of my sugar snap peas are throwing out roots and that first little tale-tell leafy thing. I have a Sunflower that's really adamant about I-want-to-grow-NOW. I think the other ones are Johnny Jump Ups that look promising as well as several of the herbs that look like they're doing really well, but it's harder to tell with them because their seeds are so tiny so the resulting plant bits are equally as tiny.  Anyways, here are some really crappy pictures!!

Saturday was supposed to be my research day.  I posted about my like of research and how the research actually went via my other blog.  It didn't go as planned, I can say that much.  I stopped by Half Priced Books on my way home (bad idea, I know!) and sort of hit a gold mine.  I found several volumes I had been thinking about buying after at the library and two others that just looked promising.  I also bought two knitting books.  Yes!  Me - bought knitting books!  One focuses on using colors and patterns which I would like to learn.  I had sort of decided to spend the rest of a failing Saturday knitting, but a friend of mine wanted to go see Alice in Wonderland.  Long story made short, I drove all the way to Arlington - like south-west corner, lol - only to find out that the movie was sold out. Awwee!  So we saw Book of Eli instead!

Book of Eli...  Okay, so you know going into this movie that it's probably some sort of post-apocalyptic, religious  movie.  After seeing Legion I was skeptical about this one, but I had heard a few good things so I still wanted to see it - and Denzel Washington does a lot of good movies so I decided to be hopeful.  The setting was sort of Resident Evil meets I Am Legend.  It was sort of believable from what you are led to understand.  The characters were ... interesting.  You really only get inside four characters through the movie, Eli, the girl I sort of intentionally ignored, the bad guy, and the girls mom.  Can you tell I don't pay attention to names well?  Anyways, they were all pretty much okay.  The plot is that Eli is taking what is the only copy of the Bible left on earth,  west, where God told him it will be safe.  Okay, I can believe that; a hard sell to non-Christian or religious audiences but I can get that.  The really hard bit for me to accept came at the end where they do the big reveal.  I've decided to not say what it is...  I don't really think the big reveal is all that believable because he was too aware of things through the movie for that thing to be true -- though if you ignored the plausibility of it, it was a dang good kick to the evil guy.  I liked the movie.  I really did, and that surprised me.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday I had decided to go to church, take the chins out to the patio and scrub their drop try.  I apparently did not set my alarm, and it was raining.  Neither of those things happened.  I did, however, get some knitting done. Here are the pictures of my headband!  Which I finished while watching Ponyo, but I'll talk about that in a moment.
So the yarn is really great and soft.  I need to get a button to sew on to really finish it, but you get the idea.  It's a headband, super fun and comfy.  Of course it's done now, when it's too warm to really wear it anymore!  Oh well, next winter, right?  I'm really proud of this!!



Right, anyways, Ponyo!  I'd posted via twitter that I had it coming in on my Netflix and a friend of mine responded that she wanted to watch it so we deiced to get together and watch it.  Now if you know anything about Miyazaki's films, they're generally a bit abstract or weird, but usually really cool!  I have heard some not-so-great opinions about it so I was ready.  However, I don't know that I was really ready for this.  Ponyo is sort of a take on The Little Mermaid, where Ponyo is the daughter of... well... I'm not quite sure what he was, but he had magic and lived under the ocean and yeah...  So Ponyo has a brush with a human and decides that she wants to be human too!  And she sort of becomes this human-chicken thing.  It was strange.  And then she becomes a human and she gets utterly obnoxious.  I think we commented more on how crazy everything was and how irresponsible the parents were and just how nutty it was and how all the characters just accepted that crazy, silly stuff was going on all around them.  I can say that Ponyo is not my favorite Miyazaki film.


We proceeded to watch bad TV that I think was Legend of the Seeker -- based off of books I hated.  Eventually - thankfully - the Oscars came on.  We were both struggling to write and outline and be productive during all of this.  The best part of the Oscar's might have been Neil Patrick Harris doing the opener.  After that I officially didn't care as much about the awards.  Now, Ben Stiller coming out as a Na'vi was awesome and I still want to know if the fishing pole bit was planned...  I will have to say, after watching the Oscars I now need to see: The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, and The Secret of Kells.  The fun part about watching award shows, all the movies you decide that you might as well watch.


Okay, so that was my long-winded weekend that was apparently all about movies....and gardening......and knitting......and not as much about writing and books as I intended.

No, I am not blogging much right now.  The dreaded Other-Stuff (generally speaking work things) leave me with little other to say.  Today has been a "special" day already.  I forgot to make tea last night, so I have no tea to drink today at work so I will be drinking Dr Pepper - all day.  I left my apartment this morning - and started driving towards my friend's house - NOT work.  And there was one other uber special thing I did but I can't remember what it was...  Apparently my body also hates me.  I have slept very funny on my right arm and it hurts.  Now, I know I sleep funny when I curl my arms up and under my head. Why?  Well because a few years ago I decided it would be a great idea to get Industrial Barbells through BOTH of my ears IN the SAME WEEK.  This was not smart.  For almost a year I couldn't put my head against anything.  So I slept with my head on my arm, but with my arm making a triangle so my ear could be suspended in the open space and Not. Touch. Anything.  It's habit now.  I think maybe my computer bag has irritated this.  I also have sore spots on my outer leg/thigh - and I have no idea why!  Okay, that's all I have to write about I think.

Oh no, I bought another Beauty and the Beast book, called Beastly, and finished it yesterday.  Yes, I am terrible about this.  The review is on my other blog connected to my CidWrites.com site.  I'm working on a new skin that will hopefully rock.  Hopefully.

Now, for the real reason I prodded myself into writing this blog...  Yes, there was a purpose!

My awesomely, adorable friend Alice, even in the midst of her impending wedding is hosting a knitting book giveaway via her knitting blog/website.  The book is Knits Three Ways, and you can see her blog and the instructions for entering here.  I'm totally already guilty of retweeting and now blogging - but I was already a facebook fan.  I attribute any ability I have to read knitting patterns to the Yarn Panda.  She is amazing and ever so patient. GO ENTER NOW!!!

Knitting ~ so I'm doing this headband.  Tuesday I took it with me to critique to knit before and between our critiques.  I was too busy trying to talk, follow the pattern and k, p, yo, k2tog to notice I inverted the pattern and had done a good two inches - wrong.  I've ripped out those two inches and got back on track, and put it down.  I obviously cannot do anything complicated while something else is going on around me.  LoL.

I have just said for more than I thought was in me.  I haven't done much this week.  I haven't written anything, I read Beastly, and that's about it other than the normal weekly activities; critique group and church.  This coming weekend will be dedicated to research... Yes. Research.  SAGU I'm coming to visit your library.  Please let me in, okay?

[Edit]
I had NO idea March was National Craft Month!  Well, in the spirit I guess I'll break out my pottery wheel in a few weeks and try some pottery.  In the meantime my knitting and repainting of flower buckets will have to suffice.

Okay, so there's lots of new stuff up and going on.  I've made my own website!  Nothing too fancy, but it's up and it's mine and I'm working on a customized layout/design all my own.  It's been a pain learning all this but I'm really glad now.  If you know anything about making websites or FTP servers (which is the next thing I need to learn) please, please, please feel free to email (cid@cidwrites.com), twitter(@cidwrites), or IM(aim-spazticstarfish, msn-slippersarecool, skype-cid.tyer) me.  The website is www.cidwrites.com This will change how I blog a bit.  I will very much limit how much I blog about writing and books here and save that for my website blog.  Why?  Because should I make the decision to peruse something different in the future, it would be wise to have some content and history already established.  Now what will I be perusing?  Well that's my secret.

Right now there is a lot that is rocky, and since it pertains to work and other delicate matters - I can't blog about what has me seriously stressed, so excuse me if my blogs are scattered and sparce for the next few days to months as things are sorted out.

Um, on to something more interesting!  In the wake of these stressful events, I gave myself the night off to do - whatever.  I have knitted more on the headband I showed off last night.  It's not as far along as I would like but I would imagine it will be finished by the end of the week and I will be making a decision about making another one or trying something else.  I also watched Angels and Demons, which I was really apprehensive about watching.  I think knitting while "watching" it helped a lot.  I anticipated it being a lot slower and - well - boring.  I've heard that said a lot in reference to both book and movie, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It makes me want to reread my church history books.  The Catholic church has such a vast, complicated and interesting history.  Now, I don't believe in the myths brought up by the books, but it is interesting and I have to applaud how the fact and fiction is interwoven.

Okay, so I am putting this plug in here because a) it's my friend and b) the more plugs I stick in the more times I'm put in to win the book, soooo... A good friend of mine over at Ninja vs Pirate Book Reviews did a recent interview with new author Patrick Doud.  You can read the interview here. There is also a book give-away which I will be shamelessly entering.  Good luck!

Okay, so the weekend was crazy intense, but oh so much fun!

Friday I was lazy and watched the Olympics.  I should have been cleaning.  I didn't.

Saturday Linda and I went to the SNaP Creative Writing Conference at TCC.  It was really nifty.  Now, Linda and I only stayed for the morning sessions.  There were several writing exercises we did that were really fun.  We left once they joined everyone back together to talk about TCC stuff - and went shopping.  It was lots of fun.  Didn't spend an arm and a leg, but I did get some good stuff at Macy's and Ross.  There was of course a trip to B&N where I caved and bought a book I'd eyed the cover and back synopsis of a few weeks ago.  I impulse bought another Beauty and the Beast novel to feed my obsession.  I think I spent the rest of Saturday night watching the Olympics... I did go to bed early, however, because I was really exhausted for some reason.

Sunday, today, I got up far too early, and continued to lay in bed until I had to get up for church.  After church I scurried home and got ready for everyone to come over for Crafty Day.  Now, the catch with Crafty Day was that today was also the gold medal round of the men's hockey where USA faced off against Canada.  I let everyone know it was going to be on, and lets just say it was a riot!  I mean come on, what's not funny about seven girls, wielding knitting needles yelling and screaming at the TV??  I really pity my neighbors.  There was a *lot* of yelling.

When the game was finally over Alice taught me how to read knitting patterns and several of the little abbreviations and what they  meant.  I failed at the first pattern, a headband with some issues on the numbers and finally gave up on it in favor of another pattern, which I am glad to say is still going strong.  I'm probably 25% of the way through it .... I think.  I will update on it later.

For now, however, I am exhausted and going to bed.  Tomorrow is Monday.  Hopefully it's nice to me.

Wheee!  So I totally passed up buying a Beauty and the Beast novel that focused on a modern day version from the perspective of the beast - because I found a copy of Beauty by Robin McKinley! I check the Borders we do our weekly crit group at every so often to see if they have any other McKinley books in that I don't own already - and this week there were two copies of Beauty that were not there before! I was very happy.  And we finished the group early enough there was plenty of time to go wandering around.  Which considering it was Suzan, Linda and I was a bad thing.  I'm far too easily encouraged to buy - and Suzan and Linda are all too willing to suggest - especially Suzan!  I bought a book called The Princetta, which is a story about a princess turned pirate.  That's all I needed to know to buy it....

I'm very excited about what my fellow critique group is writing and I look forward every week to seeing their stories unfold.  I'm still focused on finishing The Barking Dog before I bring any more chapters, which means at best another month or two before I'm really ready.  But that's okay!

Progress is being made in that quarter as well.  I'm coming to the close of the section which will mark a big achievement in my opinion.  I hope that next month, despite my mom's race and the quickly populated weekends I will be able to write more focused than this month.

I'm still pumped from reading The God Engines and driving home I puzzled through some other points of the book that left me thinking.  It's a fascinating read!  I'm going to read another McKinley book, Spindle's End, next.  I'm starting to attempt to think through some of the other books on my shelves and put them in some sort of order of how I want to read them.  Of course I know I'll pick one up when I feel like reading it, but I should try to get through some of the others soon!!

So far this week is going by slowly, but I'm being very productive.  Wrote a bunch yesterday, got a lot of stuff done.  Finished one book, read another, wrote a really good chunk and set up the next, necessary bit.  I'm starting to think about the rest of the week.  Tomorrow night Amanda and I are going to church in Grand Prairie.  Thursday and Friday nights will be spent at home, I believe, during which I will clean and read and write in preparation for the weekend.  Saturday a bunch of us are going to TCC for a creative writing workshop and Sunday is craft day.  Lots happening, really exciting, and look - the Olympics are on!