Santa Baby

See how excited my daughter is to be born? She was born one week ago today healthy and beautiful. She has black hair and dark eyes, and so we think she may take after her father like our son did not.

Although very tired, it is a very joyful time having a new life join our family. I keep forgetting it's Christmas. I feel like I already had my Christmas. I also keep forgetting I like to do that one thing...what is it called again? Oh yeah, writing. A little occupied with something better:


I'll be back in a few weeks. Merry Christmas!

BLEH

Not as close to the 50 pages as I would like to be, but my Christmas decorations are up, my house is clean, and I even shaved my legs. I'm ready for this baby to come. NOW.

By the way, my blogging will probably fade out in December, but once I adjust to being a mom of two, I will be back to talk writing and books.

The Magic Number 50

I now have 50 followers! I've been blogging several months, and in September joined the following bandwagon. 50 is a nice round number. It makes me happy.

I just jumped on the scale. I've gained exactly 50 pounds during this pregnancy. (This 50 is also very nice and round, and does NOT make me happy! Of course, what did I eat last night after New Moon? CHOCOLATE. What did I eat at a wedding reception tonight? MORE CHOCOLATE! Will I ever squeeze back into my skinny jeans?)

It is exactly 50 degrees outside. Really, I just checked weather.com.

Not usually one to see signs in my life, I will just take it for what it is. 50 is trying to tell me something, and I know what that something is. So yes, I will work harder to write 50 pages of GOOD WORDS and SOLID STORY before this baby hatches.

Let it Snush!

This morning my son came into my room and said, "Look, Mom, there is snow on the ground!"



Our first snow...well, more like our first slush. It's gone now. Anyway, I love cold days when you can stay in, eat and drink warm things, snuggle with your kids and with a good story idea.

We got up and had hot oatmeal with maple syrup and brown sugar. Then we went to a doctor's appointment. Even with our first snush, life goes on I guess.

S. L. O. W.

No, it's not an acronymn. I wrote my rough draft relatively fast, but the rewrite is so slow I am not even telling you my word count. (No, my pretty inky ladies, not even to YOU.)

I think I'm a little afraid of it. I mean, my rough draft could be bad, but this has to be better. Not just better, it has to be good. And I'm slowing myself down by going back and reading what I have already written and then EDITING it. For shame.

(Oh, and then there's the whole distraction of pending babydom. See, it's coming up in every post now. I can't get away from it...her.)

I'm still trying to pound out the storyline, which has many basic elements from the rough draft but A LOT of rearranging. I'm even mapping it out with sticky 3 x 5's on my bedroom wall. I'm sure the missing pieces will come to me when I don't expect it. Like that one night when I woke up with a full bladder and a great piece to my storyline. It hasn't happened since, but I make sure and drink lots of water before bed now.

A Little Blog-Love

Having been awarded a couple awards over the last couple of weeks, I must pay my thanks...

From Heidi Willis (who's book Some Kind of Normal comes out in a couple months and if you look at her blog you will see her awesome austere-author photo) I received the Kreativ Blogger award. For this I must list seven things about myself.

1) I am the second of five children. All of us, but one, live close to one other. I love big families. Lots of cousins

2) I hate that initial feeling of stepping out of the shower or bath and feeling wet and cold. So I just don't shower or bathe.

3) I enjoy cooking and baking, and I like to make things from scratch. My husband tells me I am a great cook, but he prefaces this by telling me that I used to not cook so well.

4) I played the piano from ages six to eighteen. I guess I should have included this in my music post. I liked to play fast and loud, using it more as an outlet for teenage angst than an actual display of talent.

5) My son was born with his two bottom teeth. This isn't about me but it's pretty cool. They were loose and a choking hazard. We had to see a pediatric dentist at two weeks and have them pulled. Now his bottom two teeth are missing...never got those babies. We are hoping that the permanent ones are somewhere in there.

6) I am LDS (Mormon). Some of those I blog with I met through Mormon Mommy Writers. My religion is a big part of my life and who I am.

7) I love BBC movies, and have quite the collection. In fact, I have taken a break from all of those British novels that I love, to devour YA literature. I think it is time for me to revisit.

8) (I know I said seven.) My unborn baby's butt is permanently wedged between my ribcage. I include this in case any of you forget that I am pregnant as I'm pretty sure I manage to squeeze this fact into only most of my posts.

From Natalie Murphy, who I recently "met" through blogging and who is doing that amazing thing of both going to school and writing, I received the One Lovely Blog Award.

And since I make up my own rules, I am passing each award onto only one person, regardless of whether they have received it in the past.

The Kreative Blogger award goes to Kasie West ,who is my enemy, because she has recently started a new "kreative" blogging regimen of Maddeningly Unhelpful Advice Mondays, Wednesday Reviews, and...well, I think her Fridays change although she has done Follow Friday. Hers is one of the first blogs I check because she makes me laugh.

The One Lovely Blog Award goes to Beth Mann. Why? Well read the first paragraph of this post, and you will see there is nothing lovelier than that. Yes, she also makes me laugh.

Both have been blog-loved by me already in previous posts, but I awarded above based on very strict criteria and only after hours of evaluating all blogs on my list by said criteria.

And to my son I give the BE QUIET AND GO TO SLEEP!!! award which is closely followed by the I ALREADY GAVE YOU WATER...TWICE!!! award. Yea, that long nap today? Heaven. But I'm paying for it now.

PRETTY IN INK

Meet my writer's group, Pretty in Ink. Our motto is "We Slash the Trash." Our mascot is...oh wait, we don't have one yet. But I really like the Geico gecko. Are we allowed to have the gecko?

Patti Nielson writes young adult. She is moments away from querying her first book, which I read and loved. If an agent doesn't grab it, I think I will cry a little. She lives in Canada near the fairy-tale-sounding town of Banff, plays soccer like a madwoman, and has three children who say funny things.

Lois Moss also writes young adult. She is a girl from the south and has four children, two of whom she homeschools. (I think this makes her Supermom.) She studied Latin and French in college and used to teach. You may also know her as lotusgirl.

Beth Mann writes women's fiction. She also hails from the south. Beth is the mother of two young children, and her husband is a tech geek which we all know must come in handy as a writer. She gets to go to Starbucks and write sometimes which makes me jealous.

I'm very excited to finally have a writer's group. These are the ladies that are going to help make me into something better!