Boldmama

Building a world in 30 days

2009-08-25T16:49:00.001-07:00

I've been tossing around ideas for Nanowrimo. I really think that I need to complete the trilogy that I started. Problem is I have never felt completely comfortable with the world I created for my characters to explore.

My first novel took place mostly in Seattle and Israel. I spent months researching Israel before Nano started. My scenes ended up great, but the characters needed a lot of work.

Second novel I wrote in first person and had it take place mostly in Paris. I had been to Paris before so I relied heavily on that. I dealt with some issues my characters were going through but I didn't like my depiction of Paris. And I found out I don't like writing in first person so much.

All that and I still have not developed the fantasy portion of my characters lives. The rules that guide their powers and define what should happen.

So, I am going to take the next 30 days to create my world using this little guide I found online. Linky later. Day one is climate. Wish me luck.

Too much. It's all too much.

2009-08-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

Too much to go over that is. That is what happens when you neglect your blog for almost a month. I went to Sock Summit and was completely overwhelmed. I know I did not see 75% percent of what the vendors had to offer because I spent too much time wandering around with my mouth hanging open in sheer amazement of the scope of this event. I have never been to a knitting conference, but I can say that I will try my darnedest to be at any future Sock Summits regardless of whether or not I even get any classes.

Here is a cool video someone took with an overview of what was happenin' at Sock Summit:

I had five classes and I enjoyed 2.5 of them. Yarn Harlot and Chrissy Gardiner were the bomb and I would takes any classes from them again in a heart beat. Otherwise I could have spent the rest of my time more wisely in and about Portland and the Marketplace because there was too much awesomeness to possibly pack in four days.

Here is an awesome video of the Guinness attempt which took place on my birthday:

Did I mention that I also had a last minute roommate who was uber-awesome? I think I may be the Washington version of this Michigan native because we had too much in common to list and she was a blast. Only wish I could have been less overwhelmed and hung out with her more.

I completely went head over heels for fiber. I'm addicted. I joined the Blue Moon Sock Club which has already been going on since January. Today I got all my kits, four in total, that I had missed. I am simply aghast at the time and effort not only put into these beautiful yarns, but also in the presentation of the individual kits. Money well spent and I will definitely be a repeat customer.

Also, there is this little thing called Nano that is knocking on my back porch.

Yes, I hear you there Nano. Yes, I will be participating this year. No, I'm not entirely sure what I will be writing, but I will be there. Yes, I will. And to make it official:

Guinness

2009-07-22T07:34:00.001-07:00

Guinness World Records that is. Yep. I'm going down in the history of Guinness. In a little over two weeks I will be attending the Sock Summit in Portland. One of the events scheduled to take place is breaking the world record for the most people knitting in one place at the same time for 15 minutes. The previous record was about 276 people. There will be quadruple that amount at the Sock Summit. So cool!

In other news, BB told me this morning he did not want to go to school. I think it had to do with him being shushed during naptime yesterday. He is very prideful and it takes him awhile to recover from being criticized in any way. Hmmm...wonder where he gets that?

Post school exhaustion

2009-07-21T07:19:00.001-07:00

BB had a great first day at school. Although he did come home exhausted. He spaced out on the couch for awhile when he got home. Hey, kind of like what I do when I get home from work. He was excited to go back today, so I'll call that a good sign.

Peanut Pug had his neurology appointment yesterday. His exam was normal, so we're just going to treat this freak seizure thing conservatively. Mostly because we don't have a few extra thousand lying around for an MRI. But he is acting happy and about 90% of the pug we once knew, so all is well.

Have a trial starting next week and I am going to have to majorly buckle down the rest of this week.

A gamer in the making

2009-07-17T19:06:00.001-07:00

What is it like to be a paralegal

2009-07-16T16:57:00.001-07:00

The picture above is what you will see a lot of if you become a paralegal. This is only one of five aisles of files in only one of the rooms in our office space which spans two floors. Many people talk about the paperless office and I just don't think it is possible in the legal field. At least not in personal injury cases.

You need a few things to deal with all this paper. First you need the will not to run screaming from the office. Next you need high level organizational skills and a file clerk that knows their alphabet so that you don't lose anything.

Sometimes I like to stand here in the stacks. It is quiet like a library and its dark. It smells like paper and plastic binders and I can pretend I'm at the bookstore.

Lately my work load has been obscene. There is this fine line between having enough to do so that it propels you forward and then having so much to do that it stops you in your tracks and makes you want to hide in the stacks.

Good news is that my team finally got an email today from my attorney thanking us for all our hard work and acknowledging that our workloads have been "unhealthy" as of late. I don't really see how it will change anything, but maybe it will make me feel better.

Not quite seeing the light, but trying to be lighthearted

2009-07-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

I think the Gods Must Be Crazy. Did you see that movie? Don't feel bad if you didn't, it was released in 1980. But it pretty much sums up my reaction to the last few weeks. No, a coke bottle didn't fall from the sky, but I sure have had a lot of shit rain down on me and I sure wish I could drop it all at the end of the Earth and have it disappear.

We have Peanut scheduled for an appointment with a neurologist on Monday. Mike and I have been total wrecks watching our little pug baby go downhill. He turns nine next month. I thought I had another few years before I had to deal with geriatric dog issues.

BB starts school on Monday. Not sure how he will take this. It will be the first time he has ever been left with a bunch of people he does not know. I am hoping his curious nature will take over and it won't be too big of a deal. Probably won't be good if I start crying though right?

But before Peanut went and became epileptic on us last week, my mind had finally drifted back to one of my heart's desires. Writing.

I was reading The Writer, a magazine I subscribe to, and there was an article by a YA Author named Mandy Hubbard about getting published. Her biography indicated she was from Enumclaw which is in Washington. One thing I noticed was missing from her biography was her educational and publication background. When I read these articles I mostly see that they are written by authors with a laundry list of articles written, and oh, yeah, they all have MFAs. I checked her website and there was nothing on there either. So I took I chance and emailed her.

She was very responsive and confirmed that she was able to publish her debut novel without an MFA and without having ever published anything else before. She has also graciously agreed to meet with me to talk about it more and I will hopefully be taking her up on that offer next month. That will also give me time to read her debut novel, Prada and Prejudice.

Nanowrimo is starting to knock on the back porch of my brain. Reminding me that I have three months to come up with another concept for a novel if I hope to finish this year. I keep telling Nanowrimo to come back after Sock Summit in August and then we can talk.

You know you are stressed when you start talking to random constructs of your own mind.

Dog Epilepsy

2009-07-13T07:22:00.001-07:00

We don't yet know why, but Peanut Pug has some type of epilepsy which causes Grand Mal seizures every five hours. It all started Friday night.

My husband was up late watching TV. I was already fast asleep in bed. At 11:30pm Peanut woke from a dead sleep and started seizing. He foamed at the mouth, his eyes rolled into his head, and all his limbs shoke violently. My husband rushed him to the animal ER. He was fine by the time they got there. There was nothing that could be done.

At 4:30am I awoke to sounds of Peanut's body being thrown against the inside of his kennel as he had another seizure. My husband rushed to catch me up on all that had occurred. We waited for the vet office to open and was told no vet was in until 10am.

At 9:30am he had another seizure. This one was worse and Peanut lost all bowel control. At 10am he was at the vet's who took a full blood panel but was reluctant to start him on any meds unless he had another seizure.

At 2:30pm he had another seizure and he was back at the vets who put him on phenobarbital. He hasn't had a seizure since. The side effects of the medication make him lethargic, unsteady on his feet, and obsessively drink water to the point of throwing it up. But no seizures.

The blood work came back inconclusive. They can't tell what is causing the seizures and we would have to go for further testing with a dog neurologist in order to find out.

Now two of my babies are on meds twice a day.

The Stress

2009-07-10T07:29:00.000-07:00

I have been highly irresponsible in not updating you all on little BB. I blame it on The Stress. But to cut to the quick, BB is doing fine. The specialist called him normal and sent us on our way with two months of medication that should make things even more normal. Boy thingies are very confusing. I'll just put that out there.

But The Stress. It causes funny things, The Stress does. Causes me to break out like a teenager, become so fatigued that I put myself to bed at 8 p.m. right after my son is tucked away most nights and still wake up tired, causes my pipes to back up (was that TMI?), causes me to involuntarily make faces that reflect my inner turmoil while I am on the bus which then makes people look at me funny. Yes, The Stress.

It has been caused by this recent medical drama with BB, the fact that we had (just three days before) signed him up for pricey private school, and that my boss is so stressed with work that he keeps shoveling it onto me. I have no one to shovel my work to, so that leaves me with a lot to do. And the fact that during the summer the Washington State Department of Transportation causes tons of traffic grief by starting all these road construction projects that tack on an extra hour to my daily commute to and from work. Pack onto that the laundry list of tasks that has to be done every summer around the house: painting the front deck, staining the back deck, pressure washing the roof, weed/feed the lawn, etc., etc.

And here is the kicker...it's all normal stuff I am grousing on and on about. I know this. I know that most every family with children and two parents that work have to deal with these same things. And I guess that I am complaining here because I am also too busy to have many girlfriends to sit and chat with about these things. None of us have any time for each other. That and most of my friends live in Seattle proper and I live in the burbs. Therefore, after work I have to head straight for the buses and go home instead of meeting up with them for Happy Hour. Straight sucks!

My hubby and I are trying to plan something for our 10-year wedding anniversary in September. Problem is, we have to do this on Labor Day weekend because we can't take BB out of school right after he has started it and there is no one to take him to school but us. That and we actually can't afford to go anywhere and do anything on Labor Day weekend because everything costs twice as much. That and we HATE HATE HATE Labor Day weekend crowds and traffic and blech! But its our ten year wedding anniversary and we want to do something special.

Ugh. Sorry. Maybe now that I have purged that from my system we can go onto better things tomorrow. We are going to Remlinger Farms tomorrow for my husband's company picnic. That should be fun. Woolly sheep, gobbly turkeys and a beer garden.

I'll report back.

On hold

2009-07-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

I've been on hold for four days now. On Thursday my son was diagnosed with phimosis. His pediatrician said it was severe enough, in his opinion, to require surgical correction. He then gave us the phone number for a pediatric urologist. Unfortunately this was late in the day Thursday. We were his last appointment. And the office of the specialist, and every other place I called, was closed on Friday for the holiday weekend.

I have never loathed a three day weekend before. I have now.

I am on the bus right now headed to work because their office still does not open until 9am. Might as well pretend I have the focus to do work for a few hours.

Okay, so the hair kind of looks the same

2009-06-30T13:06:00.001-07:00

Got my haircut at a different salon this morning. I know this picture kind of makes it look the same as it did before it was cut. The thing you can't tell, but I can feel, is that she took a ton of weight out of my hair. Feeling light as a feather over here.

Unfortunately my workload is not light, so my post today is short so I can work on trimming the weight from my in box.

That and my boss is going to start wondering soon why I have my door closed and he keeps hearing my cell phone shutter noise everytime I take a picture.

Only a few more weeks

2009-06-29T18:46:00.001-07:00

Today was our preschool observation and interview. BB did great! He is so ready to go to school. The teacher commented that he was really focused during the activities. We are putting him into school for a few weeks at the end of July as a trial run. That means we only have a few more weeks until school starts. We have to get BB a lunchbox and a sleeping bag for naptime.

We also had to get new shoes for BB because my 3yo now wears size 11.5 shoes. The moms will be impressed. That's some big baby feet.

Its back to work tomorrow. We took today off to get BB's school straightened out. Good part is I have a 3 day weekend followed by a 3 day work week and another 3 day weekend. Ahhhhh.

And my Mom got me Cookie A's new sock knitting book and had it signed by her as she was just at my LYS. My Mom told Cookie A that I got Yarn Harlot's class at the upcoming Sock Summit. Not even Cookie A could get into the class! Wow! Feeling lucky again and really excited!

Zucchini and Basil Lasagna

2009-06-25T16:59:00.001-07:00

I got up this morning and started work at 6 a.m. Good news is that I did all my work today from home. Sweet! Especially since we had a day game today and getting out of downtown Seattle right now is probably hell.

Also, I got to make yummy Zucchini and Basil Lasagna. It is deceptively simple. Meaning that although it only has eight ingredients it takes over two hours to prepare and cook. Phew.

Can't believe that both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died today. I grew up watching Charlie's Angels and dancing to Thriller. Makes me realize I am not getting any younger. Originally I started this blog with the idea that it would give me writing practice and also that it would give me something to point to if I ever wanted to apply for a writing gig and I needed some writing samples.

That was a year ago.

I still haven't pursued any writing gigs.

Why?

I know applying for writing gigs without any kind of degree in writing and without ever having published anything guarantees I will be rejected. Writing is something dear and special to me. I don't know if I could handle the rejection well. That, and I have no idea what I could write about. I mostly write fiction. If I want to get paid I need to start with articles right? But about what? Ugh!

But then I go back to life is short. I'm at a crossroads.

Beer 3

2009-06-24T20:37:00.001-07:00

Hi there baseball fans! Boldmama here. Reporting live from behind first plate at Safeco field. Mariners versus Padres. My man Branyan hit a homer and now we are up 3 to 2. I only hope we can break the curse. You see, every game I see we lose. Eek. But I'm loving it.

I brought my hubby's sock to knit, but I'm on beer 3, and doing decreases for the toe is not something I can do on beer 3. Did I mention I am working from home tomorrow? Thank goodness!

Letter from the Editor

2009-06-23T06:54:00.001-07:00

Dear Boldmama,

I have noticed a lot of misspellings in your blogs of late. Please fix this. It is very disconcerting to your readers and a big no-no for bloggers. You should be ashamed.

Sincerely,
Editor (i.e. SuperEgo)
**********
Dear Editor,

While I understand your concern, what I don't think you understand is that most of my blogs of late have been completed on a mobile phone. Sometimes, like now, while I am waiting in line for the bus. To take me to my job. You know, job. The thing that keeps us both flush with tawdry paperbacks and sock yarn.

So chill-ax.

Yours truly,
Boldmama (i.e. a little bit of Ego and a lotta Id)

Note to self

2009-06-22T16:54:00.001-07:00

1. Get more sleep. Ha! In you dreams.
2. Fix that mop on your head.

I am in desperate need of sleep and a good haircut. Neither have anything to do with each other, but I feel a whole let less patient with my mop head when I am tired.

My son woke up at 4am saying his feet hurt. Note to self:

3. When BB says his feet hurt he means they are cold.

After 30 minutes of consoling him, clipping his toenails in case they were bugging him, and seeing if he had to pee, my hubby figured out he wanted socks. Ten minutes later my alarm went off.

And then there is my hair. I pay entirely too much $ for it to look like this EVER! It's flat and uneven and has no style whatsoever! I briefly thought maybe now is the time to grow it out. Then the reality of another year of bad hair reminded me that would not be good.

So if you know of a good, no great, hair stylist in Seattle let me know. Or I might just go Britney on this freakish hair-do.

Ignore the messy house

2009-06-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

Happy Father's Day! I woke up early and made French Sugar Rolls, Farmers Breakfast, and chopped strawberries for my hubby. This was a treat. Usually he is the one doing all the cooking, so I thought I would switch it up a little. Then I made dinner. Red beans and rice is simmering away as I type out this blog on my G1.

I figured I would forego the cleaning of the house since the boys are using the entire living room to create a Lego city.

Also, some great news! The vet called to say that the icky lump they took out of Peanut's neck was not cancerous. So he'll just be Franken-puppy for a little while until his fur grows back and all will be well.

Date Night

2009-06-19T19:30:00.001-07:00

Out tonight with my hubby. We had a unbelievable dinner at Txori. Can you call it dinner? It's a tapas bar. We pretty much ordered half the menu and came out stuffed. The main course went down too fast to capture on film, so the picture is of our wee tiny desserts.

We're waiting to see Midori. Our tickets got upgraded and we will be five rows back from the front. Squeeee!

Poor puppy

2009-06-18T16:27:00.001-07:00

It looks worse than it is. We hope. This is our eight year old pug Peanut. It is the second time they have had to remove a growth from the back of his neck. This one was really big. We should know the results of the biopsy in a week or so.

This sucks. My two childhood dogs also died of weirdo cancers earlier in life than they should. Makes me think there is something in the water or something. What gives?!

On a positive note, as we are completely done with the potty training we are taking BB for his preschool interview in a couple of weeks. Yeah, interview. Should I make him study up his ABCs and 123s? They probably thought I was weired when I asked them if I needed to bring anything. Like perhaps bribe money? Nah! In this economy they will probably accept anyone who is ready and willing to pay.

It is five or six more weeks until Sock Summit. I am getting nervous. There is all this homework I need to do. Hi, anyone know how to do a provisional cast-on? And I need all these supplies for my classes and I have zero dollars. See photo above if you want to know why. Doggy surgery isn't cheap.

Going to see Midori at the Symphony tomorrow. I know she will make me yearn to pick up my violin again.

Eat your dinner, then you can have one

2009-05-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

Cloud 9-10-11

2009-05-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

Things have been going pretty darn well as of late. So much so that I have kind of holed myself up and haven't written in awhile because I have to keep shaking my head and pinching myself. Oh and, no, I did not win the lottery. If that happened then I would be flying somewhere tropical right now.

My son is completely potty trained. All that muss and fuss and it took him less than a week to finally cave in and do it. As long as he is sitting on the potty backwards, he is good. He always has to find his own way to do things. I have no idea where he gets that from. *pointing at myself*

This week marked five years that I have been with the same law firm working for the same attorney. I truly love the firm and attorney I work for and would not have it any other way. It is even better that they feel the same about me. My review was glowing and they remarked that I am basically working at an Associate level. Associate attorney that is. My husband and mother-in-law sent me some beautiful flowers to mark the occasion. My husband also picked me up from work to go see Star Trek and have a yummy dinner of popcorn and Junior Mints. The movie was awesome!

Then I decided to go for something I had been mulling over for months. My birthday is the first week in August. Same time as the Sock Summit in Portland. The registration for classes opened this week. I had decided I would try to get some classes and if so, then I would make it a little vacation all to myself, for myself, for my birthday. Well, registration was freaking nuts!!!! Their server got 30,000 hits all at once of people trying to register for this thing. The knitters of the world broke the internet!

After much sadness at all the classes being taken up within the first 30 minutes, I started to hit the Ravelry boards. Seemed there was some problems with registrations. I kept my eyes peeled on the Sock Summit website. And then a shining light appeared, all the classes opened up. I got every class I wanted. I then raced over to the Rav boards and told everyone to "TRY AGAIN." Tons of other people got their classes too and all were thanking me profusely for letting them know as soon as it came back up. I felt like a knitting hero! Needless to say, I did not get much done at work that day.

So I will be at Sock Summit in Portland for four glorious days. All to myself! My schedule is as follows:

Thursday, August 6th: Rivendell and Beyond with Janel Laidman
Friday, August 7th: Toe-Up Socks for the Stubborn with Deb Barnhill
Saturday, August 8th: Knitting for Speed and Efficiency with Stephanie Pearl-McFee
Saturday, August 8th: Conquer Short Row Heels with Chrissy Gardiner
Sunday, August 9th: Top-down Socks That Use Up All The Yarn with Charlene Schurch

There are tons of vendors that will be there. There is going to be a massive Ravelry meet-up. I plan on hitting Powells and Voodoo Donuts, doing tons of knitting, and tons of reading. Not to mention my brother lives down that way and hopefully I can see him too.

So yep, all is well and good and I feel most lucky!

SLUGS!!! -- A Sitcom

2009-05-20T07:14:00.001-07:00

This morning was kind of funny. At least I think I would think it was funny if I was an observer and had nothing personally invested. As an update, my son continues to wet himself and refuses to go near the potty. It's a battle of wills at this point. His willingness to go around in wet pants and my willingness to do a heck of a lot more laundry.

This morning he woke up dry. He had not gone in his Pull-Up and I was thinking I had a shot. Nope. He did the potty dance all morning. It was painful to watch. He whined and grimaced through eating his cereal. I casually mentioned he might feel better if he went and he let out another roar of, "NOOOOOOOO!" At this point I was just wishing he would wet himself to get it over with.

We finished breakfast and headed out to the cars. I tossed a few cloth diapers at my husband so he could put them down on the carseat before my son sat down. I mean, the kid was ready to burst and I didn't have time to deal with a wet carseat. "Tell him it is because the seat is cold," I said, knowing my son was sure to protest. Sure enough I heard him whaling. "He doesn't like it because it's different," I heard Mike say from outside.

I walked outside to the car trying to think of what to tell my son. My eyes stopped on the beautiful Gerber daisies I had planted only a few weeks ago. Then I stopped dead in my tracks. My hands went straight out at my sides and I think I started bleating a little, like a sheep.

I knelt down and picked a huge slug off the nearest flower which was now a mass of holes. I threw it across the yard yelling, "Damn you slug!" I looked down and realized there was a plague of slugs upon my plants. My husband got out of the car. "What are there a lot...holy hell!" My husband does not freak out. I knew this meant trouble.

"Go in and get the salt," he yelled after me as I was already halfway into the house. I came back out with chunky sea salt and watched as the slugs started to burst into orange-y globs of goo. "It's not enough, we need more! Give me your keys" My husband ran inside and came back out with the Mortons. Of course. What was I doing with this stinking sea salt?

I think my son had stopped crying by that time and I also would have been sure that he had peed himself. Except just two minutes ago I got a call from my husband from home saying he had gone back to change because our son had just peed all over him.

Oh well, just a normal morning for me. Now, off to work.

Intermission

2009-05-16T20:59:00.001-07:00

My snake is trying to escape.

2009-05-16T15:23:00.001-07:00

Mother's Day

2009-05-11T07:19:00.001-07:00

I had a great Mother's Day. I was going to spend it with my mother, but she got sick. Instead I took time to dye my hair while reading from the Sookie Stackhouse novel I am currently into. Afterwards we went to the hardware store and got some Gerber daisies which I planted out front. The weather was gorgeous, in the mid 60s. Then I finished knitting a sock, onto sock #2. My hubby cooked a great dinner of steak, potatoes, and corn on the cob and I passed out last night feeling happy.

Of course I was a little perturbed about the 10+ phone calls to my cell phone from an international # of someone trying to call their mother. "Nope, still wrong number." And I will probably be paying through the nose for answering it. I finally had to shut off my phone because they would not stop. Then we got a wrong # call to our home phone for someone else trying to call their mom. Dang! Do people only call their mom's on mother's day and don't have that number on speed dial? So sad.

But my mother's day was great. Now on to the work week.