Awards, Short Stories, and Ditching Kittens..

Okay, I didn't really ditch Sausage.. She's been adopted! 2 cats gone, 2 more to go, and once again the lovely Kelly can rule the roost.

Sunday my amazing husband was kind enough to not only watch all 5 children for like six hours so I could go to my writing group, he also walked the half mile to the store to do the grocery shopping with them. I tell you, the man is a saint. (So tell him in your comment how awesome he is.) We had a short story challenge in our writing group - we decided to each write as much of a short story (6000-7500 words) as we could in one afternoon and then post them to our (shiny new thanks to J and I) blog to share with each other.. before editing them and reposting a polished piece later. I had a zombie dream a few weeks ago that was just.. well, it was awesome. So I saved it specially just for this short story challenge occasion. I didn't finish my story yesterday, but I came pretty close.. feel free to check it out.

This weeks' comic book stash:
Incognito (2) by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Rest (0-2) by Milo Ventimiglia (you know, the guy from Heroes?)
Batman 'Whatever happened to the caped crusader?' (1 of 2) by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert
and the rest of the extra stuff in the back of the first issue of Phonogram by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (their stuff is awesome.. jus' sayin'.)



I also need to read Watchmen.. yeah, I still haven't started it. Shut up.

So another awesome surprise on Sunday was this little bad boy..


which was bestowed upon me by the fabulous Irish Gumbo. Okay, okay.. it wasn't totally a surprise.. see, he sent out an email to notify us of this little event and there may or may not have been talk of a shin dig over at Mama Dawg's place involving strippers, shovels, nachos, quick lime, and beer.. and maybe a roll of duct tape or two.. but I'm not naming names. I'm not like that.

Thank you so much, Irish.. You are one kick ass friend yourself.

He said something about rules.. but I wasn't paying attention (I was too distracted by Captain Dumbass's beautiful eye shadow) so I'm just going to pass this little goodie on to a few of my homies and hope it all goes around in the end. Mkay?

So..
Pamela from The Dayton Time and her fabulous
Mister from The Mister
Amy from The Sprightly Syndicate
and, of course, Teri from Cold Lemonade
come on over and pick up your shit collect your award.

I love you people. You mean the world to me. And thank you so much for checking up on me when I don't show up to work blog as much as I normally do and making sure I didn't off myself am still okay. You kick ass.

Not entirely happy, not entirely sad or funny either random thoughts for your Tuesday...

Do you know what yesterday marked?? It marked 4 weeks left until we hear who the top 500ish quarterfinalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest are.. Yeah. I hope I make the cut. I don't know if I should tell myself 'I am awesome and so is my book and of course I will make it because I'm going to win this bitch..' or if I should just say 'Hey, I finished my dang book and that makes me awesome.. who cares if I win?' Hm.

Anyway, word has it that my writing is way better than that Stephanie Meyers lady who wrote Twilight.. (just ask Amy.. she's read over half my book.. in it's unedited like forgot to check your face in the mirror and didn't know you had a giant booger on your face unedited form).. So, maybe I have a chance? Sure, why not.

Depression is a bitch. (nice transition there, huh?) Have I mentioned I'm a nutcase? I am. Social anxiety, PTSD, depression.. yeah. I has it. Too honest for ya? Suck it. Go read someone else's blog.

But yeah. Depression. It's why I haven't posted in almost a week. So next time, say something. Who knows, you might be saving a life. (kidding... kind of.)

Am better now.

Our home school assistance program teacher is coming today. I'm not super excited about this. Aidan is being a poo-poo head about school lately. I love the boy, but damn... do something other than play with Lego pirate ships, dang it!!! The boy just might be the death of me... I hope his teacher has some kick ass ideas on that.. I'm thinking military school..

We have officially gone from 5 cats to 4 (and despite the fact that we were calling the kittens 'Bacon' and 'Sausage'.. no, we did not eat them for breakfast).. Someone I met on Twitter adopted one.. Bacon, to be more specific. Maybe we should have made him sign an agreement to not eat her for breakfast.. hm. We'll miss her. Sausage is still recovering from a broken tail (thanks to my kids..) but will soon be admitted to her 'forever home'.. Meanwhile, Gizmo and Livvy are busy doing their best to make us some inbred kittens... um, yeah. We had an appointment to get Gizmo's nuts removed, but the no vehicle thing kinda sorta got in the way. Uh oh.

I'm looking forward to only having one cat in my house. Seriously.

I read Walking Dead Vol 9 last night. It kinda sucked. But I hear it's about to get better.. I hope so. I almost fell asleep. Now I need to read the Watchmen. I have to finish it by March 6 because we're supposed to have a date to go see it.. a date? A date. I don't remember the last time we did that.. We might have to get a cab.

I've never ridden in a cab before. I think we should make out in the back seat.

Okay.. I should go dress my children before the teacher gets here. Ta ta.

Fun with SiteMeter: referral of the day? someone googled 'beautiful teenage girl's jugs'.. awesome. Yeah, you know who you are..

Jimmy Dean is my boyfriend..

Last night J was multi-tasking (meaning working on two computers at once because they don't have enough power to do all that he needs to do on just one..) and I was reading a book with Gizmo in my lap. I was still shivering a little from the pistachio gelato I'd just scarfed down.. accept for my lap, which was toasty warm.

"You know, people who live in cold places, and don't own cats, are stupid.. It's like having your own personal hot water bottle that you don't even have to prepare.. just sit down and there it is. And they're snuggly too."
"Yeah, but they aren't very comfortable when you stick them up your butt."
"Uh... What? Why would you be sticking a hot water bottle up your butt?"
"Huh? I didn't say anything.."



And then, of course, he said something that was really hilarious that neither of us could remember this morning..

I woke up and stumbled my way to the bathroom to get in the shower, not realizing that it was already 8:30 (cause if you wake up after 8am you automatically smell better and don't need a shower.. and all my kids get up after 8, so they never need to be washed.. score.), this only mattered because it's Friday and I needed to take J to work so I could keep the van for Aidan's dance class this afternoon (and, you know, that other reason I mentioned just now). So I took a shower and got dressed and blah blah blah... (stop imagining me naked, you sickos)

Everyone was dressed, except Jo because she was wearing a blanket sleeper, and we made fun of the kids whining like they were going to melt because it was raining as we loaded into the car.

We drove through our lovely little college neighborhood and headed downtown.. I refrained from jumping up and down in my seat (J hates it when we do that when he's driving..) because, well, it's Friday and it was after 9 by now which meant.. GARBAGE TRUCKS EVERYWHERE. I love watching garbage trucks. I know. I'm such a 3 year old boy sometimes. (I was so bummed when I was at my parents' house on garbage day.. they do it the old fashioned way with some guy driving around in a big pick-up and dumping trashcans in the back by hand.. where's the fun in that??) Seriously, between the huge construction equipment and garbage trucks and stuff, it's a miracle I haven't totaled the van driving down town.

"Mom, Dad.. It looks like when we get home we'll need to take our garbage cans out." I swear, my kids are such geniuses. To figure that out all by themselves, that the garbage trucks are out and our cans are not.. Amazing.
"Nope. Sorry dude. Today is not our garbage day." These are not the droids you are looking for...
"Besides guys," J informs them, "when you get home, you get to have breakfast with Jimmy Dean."
Stunned silence... 'Who is Jimmy Dean??'
"You know? Your mom's boyfriend.."

"Do you remember what you said last night?.. After you talked about sticking cats up your butt?"
"Uh... What?.. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'd never say something like that.. and no, I don't remember what I said next.... Why?"
"No reason.. It was just really funny.. and I can't remember what it was. I wish I had Twittered it like I thought of last night, then I wouldn't have to remember.."
"Hm. Ok. In that case, I can think of some other things you should Twitter too."

Though, honeslty? whatever it was he said, as funny as it was, paled in comparison to the email he got from his grandpa in which he accused J of being a possibly gay Jewish rabbi.


see that guy on the right? it's his birthday today.. tell him happy birthday.. NOW!

and for those of you who were actually reading it, I promise I'll do the next part of my runaway story this weekend..

knocked up

So MamaCat got out again a couple days ago... She's in heat and was stalking the back door like it was a portal to kittytopia. It never takes long for her to figure out that all she has to do is wait for the right child to come in or out of the door and she can easily slip out.

The kids were enjoying our lovely fall weather and on Princess's second or third trip through the doorway, MamaCat made a run for it. Ninja like reflexes, blink and you'll miss it... she's GONE.

But the cat came back, the very next day.

"Mom! Livvy's home!!" the Boss announces as he leads the way for Monkey to return her to the kitchen floor.

"Great. Put her back out. She's probably knocked up."

"Like you? You always get knocked up." I should have known that Monkey would sooner or later make the connection..



"Uh. Thanks. But no, not like me. I'm NOT knocked up."

"But you have been.. A lot."

Ugh.. who's kids are these anyway? And when is their mother coming to pick them up??

The Amazing Wiz-Kitty

J rolled out of bed at some horrible unmentionable hour this morning and while contemplating how to end world hunger and stop global warming he stumbled across the hall to the bathroom.. only tripping on 235 toys along the way. Yes, my husband is so brilliantly awesome that his first thoughts in the morning revolve around how he'll spend the day saving the world.. hey, it makes up for the fact that by some time in early afternoon (usually after his work out..) they turn to plots of world domination.

So he groggily steps up to the piss-pot for his morning tinkle, carefully takes aim in his early morning visual haze, and lets loose.. seconds later..

*thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump.... splash*

Stunned, he watches as BabyCat comes stampeding into the bathroom and launches himself straight between J's legs, through the stream of urine, and into the toilet.. while J is still going. He quickly realizes that said kitten can not get himself out of the toilet (should have just flushed him.. darn, no more tiny claws scaling my leg!). Still confused by the whole incident, J scoops the kitten out of the toilet and turns on the shower. No, BabyCat does not enjoy cold showers. Oops. J turns the hot water on so as to avoid a case of feline hypothermia and finishes rinsing him off. He then spent a good portion of his morning rubbing him with a towel to get him dry and warm again, wondering what on earth this tiny creature found so appealing about him taking an early morning wiz.. Was it the splashing sound? The manly smell of J's urine - perhaps it awoke the inner lion's desire to dominate? Does he prefer toilets to litter pans and really needed to go (oh, how I wish)? Or did he just really want to have an early morning swim? We may never know..