"Wow, I didn't know that you had a mommy!"

My 3 year old cousin spoke those words in wonderment when I revealed to her that the woman sitting to her right - whom she's known for most of her short life - was indeed my mom.

Now let me give you a little bit of context, the whole conversation came about when one of her older twin brothers, who are 6 years old, asked me if my son has super-hero action figures at home. It went something like this:

Twin 1: Hey, does your son play with superman toys at home?

Me: Ummm, well, no. I don't have a son.

Twin 1: So, you don't even have a family?

He asked this question looking very concerned and a just tad bit sad and to be honest, I was looking at him the same way. Just like his little sister, he's known me and my family for most of his short, little life, too. We see each other a few times a week. Shouldn't he have figured all of this out by now?

Me: Yes, I have a family--

Twin 2: Of course she has a family. Duh.

Finally! I was beginning to think that maybe there was something that I didn't know. He then proceeded to name all the members of my family, but when he got to my mom he says, "but Ms. M, she's your grandma, right?"

Sigh. I guess the gray hair was a dead give away, huh? I'd finally set them straight when the 3 year old turned her attention away from 'Curious George' and said the bit about not knowing I had a mommy.

Kids. Thank goodness they're cute. Actually, it was all very funny. I remember when I was younger, I thought that there were little people inside of the television and that all of my teachers lived at school, so I don't have that much room to talk.

Don't worry it's like riding a bike! You never forget how.

I have little secret to confess. I never learned to ride a bike as a child and I cringe at that phrase every time I hear it. Storm clouds gather around my head as I mutter darkly to myself and my companion continues on blithely unfazed by my annoyance.

There are many childhood lessons that I missed out on in my youth. This was mostly due to the fact that I was a very reserved child but part of the blame lies with my dear ol' mom. You see, I am the 4th of 5 children. By the time I was ready to do the things my older siblings had done like take dance lessons or go away to summer camp, there was less money to go around and I had to rely on the kindness of other kids my age & hand-me-down (broken) toys/equipment. Poor, poor me.

Actually, I really did have a pretty decent childhood full of love and kindness and I don't regret that much of it. However, when people causally mention things that virtually every child/teen in the country has mastered, I start to feel little embarrassed. So, when I came upon this little beauty in a garage sale a few weeks ago, I had to have it.

Can't you just see me zooming down the bike trail or around the local park on this little beauty? Yeah, neither can I. That's why I'm going to find a nice abandoned parking lot somewhere and practice until I can ride without putting my feet down or urmmm, falling off and busting my booty. Then maybe I'll feel comfortable making the jump to a real bike.

And can I just say how much I adore youtube? I swear they have a video for everything these days....

Fortunately, my bike is a little bit bigger than hers, but it's good to know that there are other folks out there like me.

Once I master this feat, I can move on to others like learning to swim....and to drive.....

Nanowrimo Wrap-Up

Another Nanowrimo has come and gone and, well, I have to admit that I.....

WON!!!

Cue the fireworks, the balloons, & the marching band.

I have to say, though, that it was a little bit more difficult than I had naively thought in my last post. I was constantly playing catch up with my word count and it wasn't until the last 3 days of the challenge that I finally decided to shut myself off from the rest of the world and apply the BIC method to increase my word count. In case you weren't aware of it, BIC stands for Butt In Chair and sometimes that's the only method that works. It was just me, my laptop, a cup of tea & reruns of The IT Crowd playing in the background to keep me company.

I ended up with about 70,000 words, which is great but I still haven't technically finished my story yet. It's about 3/4 of the way done and I probably won't even think about looking at those words again until January. I figure it will take at least that long for me to get rid of the curious side effects that seem to afflict me every time participate in Nanowrimo. I'm convinced that Nano has caused me to morph into my own special version of Lady Redundant Woman from PBS' Word Girl.

(Yes, I did just reference a kid's cartoon show. Snicker if you must.)

I foresee whole blocks of prose being cut because of this. I also had to learn to use apostrophes and hyphens, again, and to shake this annoying habit of using 20 adjectives/adverbs per sentence. Thank goodness for the revision process. The upside is that I already have my whole story plotted out and I'm on a first name basis with all of my characters.

All in all, I'm happy that I decided to participate this year and I look forward to doing it again in 2010.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

"What?" You ask, "Did I have have a freak accident, fall into a coma for two months and wake up just in time for Christmas?"

No, silly! I'm not talking about that time of the year. I'm talking about Nanowrimo.

It's finally November 1st and people all across the country have signed up to write 50,000 words in 30 days. At first glance, it sounds like a foolhardy task, but when you break it down into daily word counts, it comes out to about 1,667 words per day. That's doable, right? Right!?

Despite my enthusiasm, my biggest concern with this year's Nano is finding the time and motivation to fit 1,667 words in everyday. The first week is usually fine & I'm able to meet my word count easily. By the second week, however, the shiny newness of the endeavor has worn off and the fatigue has started to set in. I probably don't have to tell you that I didn't win last year.

I figured out my problem, though. I didn't take sufficient advantage of my peak energy/creativity periods. For me this hits at about 10 or 11 o'clock and lasts until whenever I eat lunch. This means that I'm probably going to have to go into stealth mode while I'm at work. I know, I know, it's not the most professional thing to do, but I figure as long as I get my work done, everything should work out fine. I hope...

I'll post updates as the month progresses.

Bookzilla

I have a weird obsession with books.

I can't walk past a book store or fair without buying something. I always have a couple of books on me at all times in case real life gets too boring. I've been like this since I learned to read all those many years ago. I have fond memories of bumping into walls at school because I couldn't be bothered with actually looking up as I walked.....yeah.

Anywho, imagine my giddiness when I found out that the 4th annual Decatur Book Festival was being held this past weekend.

The book festival kicked off Friday afternoon with a writer's workshop at Agnes Scott College. Kaylie Jones & Sir Harold Evans were the keynote speakers for the event. I also attended a workshop on crafting memorable characters given by N.M. Kelby. They were all wonderful speakers and I plan to add Kelby's new book "The Constant Art of Being a Writer" to my ever growing 'to be read' pile.

Most of the festival events took place on the following day, however. There was a stage devoted solely to children's books that featured a variety of great authors like Peter McCarty, Melissa Conroy, & Eleanor Davis. I was able to get an autographed copy of Otis by Loren Long.

I think that this was my favorite picture of the whole day. I still don't know what he was advertising (oops!), but I had to give him props for donning the zebra costume in that heat.

One my favorite fairground foods is the funnel cake. Mmm mmm good. It's really a heart attack on a paper plate, though. The dailyplate.com estimates that it has about 760 calories. Ouch.

Another highlight of my day was getting to hear Stephanie Bond detail the most efficient way to move a body.

Stephanie is the author of a popular series of books about a brother & sister who just happen to fall into the body moving business. What follows is a mix of mystery, romance, and humor. It seems like it's going to be an entertaining series. I scored two autographed copies.

All in all, I had a great time. Hopefully, next year, some of the authors that I didn't get to hear will decide to come back. I really regret not being able to make it to see Jon Scieszka. I think I like his books a little more than my 9 year old nephew does.

Recycling

“To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” -–Mahatma Gandhi

"Like a shadow that does not permit us to jump over it, but moves with us to maintain its proper distance, pollution is nature's answer to culture. When we have learned to recycle pollution into potent information, we will have passed over completely into the new cultural ecology." ---William Irwin Thompson

In a perfect world, I would not have to throw away anything at all.

I would not cook or buy more food than I could eat. The parts of the food that I could not digest, like coffee grounds and eggshells, would be lovingly placed in the compost pile that resides next to my meticulously tended garden in the backyard. Everything that I purchased would either be reusable, recyclable, or completely biodegradable. I would not need a car because I would rely on my legs, my bike, and/or my city’s superbly run public transportation system. In a perfect world, everyone would think that this behavior was perfectly normal and that anyone who deviated from these practices was unnecessarily wasteful.

Our reality, however, is far from perfect and, as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t even live up to my own lofty ideals.

I do incorporate some small energy/earth saving measures into my every day life like turning off unused lights and appliances, not buying disposable plates & cutlery, and using public transportation when possible, but I feel like I could be doing so much more. For example it’s hard for me to resist the lure of individualized packaging. Intellectually, I know that it would be better for me to go for the family/economy sized packaging, but smaller sized bags of chips, bottles of water or packs of facial tissue look cuter and just seem more convenient. And I think that’s the problem, I have to train myself to sacrifice a bit of convenience for the “greater good”.

I'm going to try an experiment for the next two weeks to see if I can live without so much waste. In addition to buying less overall (my bank account is shouting out "Hallelujah!" right now), I'm going to choose the more environmentally conscious option when I can. So instead of plastic, I'll choose cloth and instead of buying bottled water/sodas/juice at work, I'll bring my own from home. I also will try to choose products that can be bought in bulk and easily recycled. We'll see how it goes...

On a related note, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this book in my local bookstore:

Re-bound, written by Jeannine Stein, features a variety of notebooks, organizers, journals and photo albums that can be made from everyday items that you have lying around your house. I can't wait to dust off my decrepit sewing machine and try out one of these projects. The Potato-Chip Double-Sided Notebook is calling my name.

To love and to laugh

I first saw this video on Craftster.com and I've been obsessed with it ever since. The Canadian duo Catherine Leduc and Matthieu Beaumont have put together this fabulous music video that uses over 700 pieces of knitted wool to tell their story. In french, tricot machine, the name of the group, means knitting machine, so it seems appropriate that an actual knitting machine would play such a prominent role in one of their videos.

Tricot Machine || Les peaux de lièvres from Dare To Care Records on Vimeo.

Here's the french and english side by side:

T'as les joues rouges boréales Tes couettes noires virent au blanc comme l'asphalte Y tombe des peaux d'lièvres sur Montréal On s'éclipse sur party La neige crisse sous nos pieds Les flocons dansent doucement Dans le vent Mais c'pas la faute du temps Si je frisonne Et nos mains se repèrent Et nos coeurs s'accelèrent On s'dit rien et pourtant On s'comprend Sur les premiers murmures De l'hiver Le désir nous harcèle On court par les ruelles Ça fait tellement longtemps qu'on s'attend La nuit s'annonce chaude et si belle T'as les joues rouges boréales Tes couettes noires virent au blanc comme l'asphalte Y tombe des peaux d'lièvres sur Montréal

Your cheeks are red, boreal Your black hairs turn to white like asphalt Hareskin is falling on Montreal We leave the party Snow crisps under our feet Snowflakes slowly dance In the wind But it’s not because of the weather That I shiver And our hands find themselves And hearts beat quicker We say nothing to each other but We understand Under the first whispers Of winter Desire hounds us We run through the back alleys We’ve been waiting for each other so long The night promises to be so warm and so beautiful Your cheeks are red, boreal Your black hairs turn white like the asphalte Hareskin is falling on Montreal

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Weird Al's latest video, Skipper Dan. I'll warn you that it's depressing--but, in an amusing way. It's about an aspiring actor who is forced to take a job at a theme park to pay the bills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNo8LvdOwSk