Pestilence

Sorry about the silence yesterday.  Apparently there is a horrible Death Germ that wishes to destroy our Christmas merrymaking, and it is sweeping through our household.  (Except for the cats. Apparently cats are immune to the Death Germ). But I am popping in to say that we are not beaten! We are mending, and we will still sing carols, and watch the animated Grinch smile, and blink blearily at the twinkling lights...

Fearsome

Rejection is a fearsome beast.  I always told myself I was querying in batches of ten (or so) because I wanted to wait and get feedback on fulls and partials. And I've gotten valuable feedback on fulls, so I suppose that's worked for me. But there's also the whole 'gah-if-I'm-submitting-rejections-will-come!' fear.  I did not admit to this fear, not really. After all, every time you bake cookies you could burn them. Every time you have a party, someone could end up sad because you didn't have enough cookies because some of them got burnt. The point is, I knew that it takes risk to do anything worthwhile, but I do think part of my waiting had to do with nerves.

I recognize that, though. So now I am submitting! I see my procrastination-brought-on-by-fear, and I am vanquishing it! Although I am taking a break tonight. Today was my last day teaching in 2011, so I think tonight I deserve some nice eggnog. Or popcorn and root beer.  And...maybe I'll watch Muppet Christmas Carol.

Best. Adaptation. Ever. Makes me want to read the book every time I see it!

Yay Muppets!

Is it break yet?

I have to teach tomorrow. And, while I love my job, it is sort of crazy whenever Christmas falls on a Sunday--people have to work through the 23rd, often enough, which doesn't give as much time for eggnog and gingersnaps as I would like.

 Speaking of cookies, here is a recipe for some delicious ones.  If you like molasses (and I do), and if you are in a cookie-baking sort of mood...I shall live vicariously through you!

Molasses Sugar Cookies

¾ c shortening

1 c sugar

¼ c molasses

1 egg

2 t baking soda

2 c sifted all-purpose flour

2 t cloves

½ t ginger

1 t cinnamon

½ t salt

Melt shortening in a 3 or 4 quart saucepan over low heat.  Remove from heat; let cool.  Add sugar, molasses, and egg; beat well.  Sift together flour, soda, cloves, ginger, salt, and cinnamon: add to first mixture.  Mix well.  Chill.  Form 1-inch balls, roll in granulated sugar, and place on greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.  Bake in moderately hot oven (375 degrees) for 8 to 10 minutes.

Deja Vu Blogfest

Today's The Deja Vu blogfest, which means I shall post sooner than later! I'm supposed to go back through my archives and re-post a forgotten tidbit that is awesome.

Hmmm...I don't even have much of an archive, but this is hard! There's the first post where I set up my rules so I could enjoy blogging, the post about my family, and my not-very-informative post about em-dashes and otters.

Finally I settled on one that didn't insult semi-colons or talk about hobbits.  I chose it because I am currently finding the charts very useful in motivating my three-year-old (and myself) to do those ever-friendly chores.  There's something satisfying about checking off a to-do list--or putting a tire on your very own Might Machine Chore Chart. So...here's the original post:

Chore charts

I spent a few hours this week putting together chore charts.  I'd like to say it's because I'm finally becoming responsible and adult-like, but actually it's because I like an excuse to paint.  If our house stays a little neater...well, that's just awesome bonus sauce.  There's one circle on each chart for every day of the week, and they're attached with Velcro so we can add/detach them.  Good idea?  We'll see.

Anyway.  Pictures.

Here's my husband's.  He ordered a pizza, with ONLY pepperoni (although in real life he eats lots of toppings--I think he was being sweet and keeping it simple for me):

And here's my three-year-old's.  He didn't care about difficulty level (or Mommy's lack of interest in construction vehicles), but his was still fun to paint:

Mine...well, all the initials on the spines of the books correspond with real authors.  Ooh!  And there's a raven!  I like ravens...

The initials are G.C., T.P., M.R., R.D., E.B.W., W.S., and E.S.  Make your guesses in the comments (if you dare...)

'Tis the Season

I started submitting again this week.  I know, I know--I said I was going to submit a while ago, back when I posted my query (which is better now, by the way), but I sort of kind of hate querying and only submitted a few more. Which upped my total queried agents to about 25.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I am actually happy with my query (finally! those things are difficult!), so I started sending it out this week. A lot.

And I'm getting partial and full requests! Multiple ones! It is a strange and exciting thing (I sort of expected silence in December, but this is better.  Yay!)

I've been waiting on a couple of other agents for a while, which is one of the reasons I wasn't submitting to new ones.  But it feels good to get some more pages out there (Writer's House?!?), and there's the plain fact that I need to find the right reader for my book.  I don't like every book I pick up, even ones that come with enthusiastic recommendations, and it makes sense that agent's tastes will also vary.

Here is a fairly long video of Holdman Christmas lights from 2010. This year their lights are at a mall (which makes sense, given the amount of traffic they must attract), but here's some songs and snow at their house. 'Tis the season!

Conjunctivitis

Apparently, if you get more sleep, sometimes you wake up with your right eye glued shut by gunk. And then, when you get it open and wash your hands a gazillion times, you notice that your eyes are all Christmas-colored--red where they should be white and greener in the iris because of all the contrast. Hooray! you think as you go about your day. I have pink eye, and I look festive.

Hooray?

Now I am getting glasses for the first time in ten years! They don't look like this, although I could probably scare a few people if they did. Hmm...

Sleep

You know what is most important during the holidays? I love my family. There's books, and church, and lights, and cocoadecorationspresentsgamessparklyfun.

But you can't enjoy any of it without sleep.

So here is my resolution: even though I'm in the middle of grading the longest essay of the semester, and shopping for my friends and family, and editing my second book while querying my first book (which gets confusing), and trying to find time for various lights and holiday magic things, I will still go to bed. Before eleven. Sleep can be a writing and holiday goal, too!

I couldn't find a picture of Cindy Lou Who sleeping, but this is what she would look like if she, say, got up at three in the morning wanting breakfast like certain three-year-olds in our house (he fell asleep in Mommy's arms instead, thank goodness).