My A to Z Theme (and personal rules)

I do much better with blogging when I have some sort of idea about what I expect from myself. So here it goes...

My theme for the A to Z blogfest will be...monsters, legends, and story-inspiring creatures.

Here's how it will work. I will:

1. Make a picture of the monster in Paint (I miss Paint!)
2. Write some (brief) stuff about the creature
3. Post it

I've written A already, and on Sunday I will post it and write B, which I will post on Monday, when I will write C...you get the idea.

Whew! Now that I've got my own procrastination settled, let's all settle back for a fun and educational video!

Gah! A to Z Blogfest, a new book to prep, and I can't hear out of my left ear...

...dratted ear infection and lost voice! 'Tis hard to teach. And be coherent. I don't get sick--except, apparently, I do.

Video!

Oops!

Sorry for the silence on Friday--I went to The Hunger Games, which was sad and well-done and exciting. Oh, and my four-year-old got pink eye on Thursday, and a horrible sore throat cough bug that I managed to catch as well. Yay for teaching my immune system new things?

Anyway, I realized that I have a much higher tolerance for reading about death games than seeing them. I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to movies. I had a professor at the University of Utah, one of the best teachers ever, who had us watch Pulp Fiction for a Critical Theory class. I ended up shutting my eyes during most of it and asking my husband to tell me what was happening. Except during the one scene in the car, which I thought was safe. Oh, and I saw the shot-to-the-chest scene, too. And the gun store owners. And...other violent stuff. Needless to say, even though the structure was brilliant and I'm glad I saw it, I haven't seen it since.


I don't know what this has to do with me missing Friday, except maybe I can claim I was too traumatized. This is a lie, but it's Monday, and Mondays are good days for lying. Also, pirates!

Excited for Friday...

Lots of people are going to this movie on Friday:

Yay for books-turned-into-movies! Now if only we can find a babysitter...

Video week!

I think this week I'm going to try and post videos with minimal writing so I can get some research papers graded (yay?), and maybe (if I'm super good) prepare a bit more for the A to Z Blogfest in April. So...I like history. I know United States history the best. And this video, made by teachers, makes me smile:

Writing for Charity

I'm excited--and a bit nervous--about the Writing For Charity conference tomorrow. It's in the Provo Library, and it will be full of awesome authors. Authors like Shannon Hale, Tracy Hickman, and Brandon Sanderson. Did I mention that I'm excited? And nervous?

See, I have this thing. When I meet musicians, or actors, or pretty much anyone, I usually can talk. This is a good thing, the talking. And I usually make sense, too, which is a bonus. But...I like authors. My best friends growing up were authors. I'll probably never meet Patricia Coombs, and I certainly won't meet E.B. White or Roald Dahl, but after that picture book/chapter book phase my favorite authors (for third and fourth grade) were Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I first noticed em-dashes on their pages, and I loved their anti-heroes and heroes, the way I could never predict what would happen, the hope they infused their fantasy with.

So I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and I should print off my first two pages for an author critique and gather together all the books I want signed. Because even when I get all tongue-tied, authors are nice. I could hardly talk to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and he kissed me on both cheeks. Everything turned out! And everything will turn out again, right? Plus it's all for charity that gives books to children, and everything is right about that. Yay!

Happy Pi Day!

I went to Village Inn for dinner tonight. They were giving out free slices of pie. Not because it was pi day, strangely enough, but because it was a Wednesday.

Anyway, I wanted these earrings for today (I'll get them for next year, I swear!):

And they're green, too! St. Patrick's Day would be covered!

And here is a picture of a bubbly pony (bubbles are round, right?):

Yay for 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209 7494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651 3282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102 7019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 2847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432 6648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920 96282925409171536436789259036001133...

(I totally copied and pasted that, by the way, and if you want to see more...there it is).

Cosplay

I may or may not be wasting time playing this game. But if I were better at creating costumes or filming stuff, you can bet I'd do something impressive like this:

I don't recognize most of the costumes, but they are beautiful, and there's more you can watch on her youtube channel, if you like that sort of thing. I do!

Middle Grade

Middle grade books are hard to write, I've decided. Especially if you want to be witty and inventive on days when it's sunny, which for some reason bring out my inner child--who, by the way, could never have written a book. I read tons across the board, from literary to picture books, and I think I'll always be a reader first. I'll always be pushing myself as a writer to see what new things I can do, so if middle grade is hard, I'll work at it until it isn't. Plus, first drafts are always bad. I need to remember that.

Anyway, it's still sunny. So here is a trailer for the movie that scared me more than any other movie when I was three...I thought that the evil cats were made out of fire, a terror I still remember. Enjoy!

Field trip

Well, today I went up to the University of Utah library with my class, where we learned all about databases, Noodle citations, and bowling (we ate lunch in the Union Building afterwards, and there may or may not have been pins involved). It was fun, but I am tired, although I'm still tempted to go outside and poke around in the yard--did I mention we got a landscape design? From a professional? So I'm all excited about swing sets and fences and plants called Bedstraw that may smell like vanilla...

On the minus side, I didn't write today. I write every day. Except on the once-a-year-field-trip-day. But I miss it! I am an addict, I think.

Here is a bush we're supposed to put in our yard. And if butterflies really come to a bush with flowers that look like butterflies, I will be a very happy newbie gardener!

Spring? Please?

There is sunshine. Outside. Right now. Granted, there's still patches of snow on the lawn in the shadier parts, but I'm going to pretend it's spring. I'm also going to pretend that I'm off to do yard work right now. Because we did have a landscape designer come over and give us plants we can use to make our yard pretty-ish (butterfly bushes and roses and such), so we've got some preparation to do (if we can figure out what we're doing)...

Whee!

The groundhog lies if it says spring is coming early. Lies! (But I do want to see this movie again sometime soon.)

Whew!

An upcoming field trip that's been a nightmare to plan + a sadly low tax return + a toddler + a child who was throwing up but inexplicably had the energy to climb all over mommy's head all day = sleepy. Here is a clip of Muppets to make up for my lazy Friday posting: