I’ll start off by saying this post has nothing to do with writing. Maybe that’s because I haven’t done much writing lately. Either way, this is what I felt compelled to write about.
Last week I had kind of a lousy week at work. Patients weren’t showing or there were already holes in the schedule to start with. I only work 12 hours a week, so every hour missed makes a big difference. Then we got to Thursday (last day of the work week for me) and I actually had a full afternoon of patients I always enjoyed seeing.
When my last patient came in, I immediately recognized that on the verge of crying look a lot of young moms get. The one I still get on a fairly regular basis, especially lately. When I asked her how she was doing, she started off by saying it had been a rough week. It snowballed from there. And let me tell you, I totally sympathized with everything she was saying, from struggles with the kids’ school to toddlers refusing to potty train to feeling like your dental cleaning was the highlight of your week because it was the first alone time you’ve had, because I’ve been there many times.
So, I started telling her about the 6 college classes I’m taking and the massive amount of homework they require, the crazy things my kids did when they were little and the crazy things they’re still doing, the many projects my kids have done in the last month-for school and because my daughter really loves YouTube craft videos (FYI: avoid the giant marshmallow), the soccer team my husband and I got suckered into coaching and the crazy ref who started harassing me after I complained to the league about him yelling at the girls all game and taking off without telling anyone after enforcing the mercy rule , and how stressed out my husband has been trying to finish a bunch of work so he can transition into his new position.
We spent most of the appointment laughing with each other.
At some point my patient-still laughing-said she was suddenly feeling better about dealing with her toddler. The funny thing was, I was thinking the same thing after telling her about how hectic things were for us. It wasn’t a competition to see whose life was crazier. Toddler years were tough. I’m glad we’re not in that stage anymore. We have new challenges now, a lot of them just as much of a struggle as trying to keep you little one from climbing up on the table and sucking all the chocolate off the toffee you just made (you can imagine the mess I had to clean up after that one, lol!).
My kids are now 10 and 13 and we’re dealing with mean girls at school instead of potty accidents, but chatting with my patient reminded me that all of these things are temporary. I may not be blogging or writing very regularly for a while, but eventually soccer will end and the semester will finish and all the other stuff will level out. More crazy will line up, it always does, but we’ll get through that, too.
So, if I’m not around much lately, be patient. I’ll be back when the crazy dies down. Thanks for hanging in there with me!
Mythography has recently introduced a great new service highlighting mythic fiction. Personally, I love mythic fiction, and I know a lot of my readers do to, so I wanted to share a few details about this service.
Just to clear up any confusion right off the bat, bunnies are the worst! Sure they may look cute, hopping around with their cotton tails and twitchy noses, but it’s all a trick. They will destroy your grass by eating it down to the roots and by peeing and pooping on it like mad-which also kills the grass. They will also gnaw off the bark of your fruit trees, which is not good for them at all, and those freaky jackrabbits’ giant creepy teeth, I’m pretty sure, could chew through your ankle if it got the chance.
A trope is a familiar and repeated (aka overused) symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing (anything) that is spread throughout a particular genre.
Of course not. The key is to use them in their barest form. Strip them down to the essence of what makes readers connect with the trope to begin with, and add from there.
It’s taken me a long, long time to finally get around to cleaning this book up and putting it out there, but Memory’s Edge is finally up for pre-order and will release on Kindle and #KindleUnlimited on August 21st!
Now that my kids are getting older, children’s museums offer less and less. Their interest in playing with bubbles or making paperclip helicopters has waned. At almost-ten and thirteen, they want something in between appreciating modern art and crawling through the “pretend you’re a bug” exhibit. They want exciting, yet interesting.
If you’re planning at trip to Mesa Verde National Park and hoping to explore the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling, one of the largest and most popular cliff dwelling sites at the park, you’ll be limited to viewing it from a distance. Why? While we want all our visitors to experience the cliff dwellings, keeping guests safe is our top priority. Recent rock falls at the Spruce Tree House site prompted the decision to close it to the public for the first time in 50 years. 
That covering worked for two decades, but in 1960, a 10-ton rock fell from the south end of the cliff overhang, hitting the nearby public trail and part of the Spruce Tree House site. Trained climbers pulled down a loose, five-ton rock in danger of falling to prevent it from doing more damage, and cleanup began. The previous covering put over the crack was removed and replaced with an anchoring system that would hopefully prevent the cracks from widening. These 42 anchors, up to 16 feet long, were drilled into the cliff face to anchor the arches in place, then the crack was filled with gravel and cement. This system held for many years, until recently. 
While flying does cut down your travel time, it also leaves you without a car. That’s not so bad when visiting New Orleans and staying at a hotel right in the French Quarter…mostly. While my husband was sitting through an EPA conference, my two kids and I walked all over the French Quarter, seeing the aquarium, kids museum, cemeteries, the double decker tour buses, and the butterfly habitat.
For some reason, rather than just having the nice man at the hotel call us a cab, I thought we could make it to the zoo using NOLA’s public transit system. I had several maps which laid out the route to the zoo through various modes of transportation. It would be an adventure, right?
They nicely pointed out where we should be standing. A platform in the middle of the road. The streetcar lines literally ran down the middle of the street, with cars driving on either side. Beginning to regret this adventure, we trekked safely to the streetcar stop, only to be followed by yelling. I looked around, hoping the shrieking isn’t directed at us, and found the nice lady who’d directed us yelling and waving at us. I was so startled, it took me a few minutes to figure out what she was trying to tell me.
Because the streetcars run on rails, they run in one direction. What direction you want to go determines was side of the tracks you should wait on. We were on the wrong side. So, grabbing my kids’ hands again, we hurried across the rails to the other side of the middle of the street, and waited at the right stop.
Seeing that I had two kids with me, the other tourists were extremely kind and let us get on with the first group. Ten minutes later, we finally made it to the zoo, and it was as fabulous as I’d been told. One of the best zoos I’ve visited. The only thing that wasn’t awesome was the fact that we had still had to get back to the hotel.